


In Our Nature: Book Two

by ninety6tears



Series: In Our Nature [3]
Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Background Relationships, Character Death, F/M, Gen, Mirror Universe, Multi, Torture (Mostly Psychological)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-27
Updated: 2017-04-22
Packaged: 2017-12-13 04:05:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 78,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/819776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninety6tears/pseuds/ninety6tears
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After four of the ship's officers never returned from an away mission, Spock reluctantly assumed the role of captain on the <i>Enterprise</i> while mourning the absence of his closest companions. Jim Kirk is meanwhile becoming the Terran Empire's most wanted fugitive in a slowly transforming mirror universe. Both of their fates may be affected by the self-fulfilling prophecy of a man who has very little to lose.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Spock

**Author's Note:**

> I was fairly adamant about not wanting to update this fic as a WIP, but since it will reach something of a natural stopping point after a few parts, I decided to start it up; just be warned there will be a hiatus coming up after three chapters, assuming I don't change my mind.
> 
> At present this looks to be about the same length as Book I, but we'll see. Book II will complete the main story of ION, but there may be more to come from this continuity after I've finished.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1 DAY.

 

 

 

 

The hours during the four's initial absence felt filled to the brim with empty explanations; it seemed that without the captain's quick manner of insistence, without him at Spock's side, Spock was prone to overcomplicated forms of managing the rest of the crew's role in ensuring it would be possible for him and the other three to return. Even when describing to the members of engineering and assistance who were the most comfortable with transdimensional theory how this was one of thousands upon thousands of unpredictable variables in the lifetime of this part of the universe's ionic irregularity, that they were in the fragile pocket of a rip in reality that would collapse from eager and open to a metal wall of impenetrability for good, even then he felt that he was alone in understanding the precariousness of the situation. He was assured later on that this was only a skewed perception. It did not matter in the end; there was nothing that any of them could have done.

When he was not monitoring the readings in the transporter room himself, he had Chekov stationed there, poised to alert him at the peak opportunity for the transporter transmission to be attempted again. But the problem came from the other side; it was untouchable even as it cracked through the disruption, heavy and fateful but mockingly subtle.

This all began with Spock receiving Chekov's voice over the comm system: "Sir, there is a problem."

Spock was certain when he arrived at the transporter room that there were crew members lingering there for no protocol-abiding reason, but he almost did not notice; he was singularly focused on examining the new readings himself.

"The readings suddenly became...irregular—" Chekov stammered to explain to everyone else in the room, "They have been irregular the whole time, of course, but it was no longer following the same pattern. Before, the dimensions were waving closer to one another in tandem, now..."

It was the rest of the room that needed him to continue; Spock had not looked up from the chart since he first walked in and went right for the first transporter console.

"It is the slightest shift in the pattern, but it will become increasingly rather than less dangerous, for them to..." Chekov shook his head, again and again, unable to tell any of the eyes trained on him what they wanted to hear.

Spock spoke into the comm: "Giotto, begin escorting the four passengers to the transporter room." He then addressed everyone else. "My calculations would be more exact if I was privy to the other universe's readings, but I estimate between a fifteen and twenty percent chance of successful dimensional transportation, assuming the four are attempting it at this time."

"And if they're not?" a quiet ensign asked.

"Their chances will only dwindle." Spock finally uttered the bleak explanation for anyone present who wouldn't specialize in the science of the readings: "We are monitoring irregularities in the warp stream which can only be explained by faint cross-readings received from a nearly identical transporter in the alternate reality, and this data suggests that the functionality of the other transporter has been tampered with."

"You're bringing the others in here...Why, so they can try to take the gamble?" Sulu asked.

"Should we really do that?" Chekov could be quite forward in his most emotional states.

"It is their prerogative to take the risk," Spock replied, but he was still evaluating the factors somewhere underneath the other noise in his mind, and Sulu finally spoke up from where he stood next to Chekov.

"But you're saying that there would have to be a trade-off, one or more of them would have to decide to take the risk and see what happens, and that it's a lot more likely to work if the counterpart is going into the stream at relatively the same time."

"Yes."

"But none of them would do it. Not even Kirk." Sulu interrupted the couple opening mouths, explaining with immediate certainty, "In some other world, somewhere safer, he'd make himself the guinea pig, sure, but think about what their doppelgangers have been like since they got here, what kind of place it must be that they came from. Would he leave the other three to such a hostile world, on their own? I don't think so."

"...I agree with that assessment," Spock realized hollowly. His mouth was open for a second before he managed to comm security and tell them to belay the order to remove the four from the brig. "Also, please inform them in as decent a manner as possible that they will not be returning home."

A vague, slightly sick noise went around the room at the certainty that paralleled what Spock had just said. Sulu sighed. "We could still let the other Kirk take the risk?"

"Are we confident in knowing what Jim would do or are we not?" Spock demanded, though he understood the reach for hope, that Jim may attempt it after all, that someone could be salvaged. "We will not recklessly forfeit any of their lives."

Sulu was already conceding with defeat, "You're right. Just...Jesus," his voice finished in a small astonished mutter.

A long air of stunned silence overtook the transporter room. Yet another member of engineering came walking in, matching the way the rest of the room seemed oddly out of breath, and her face took on a flatness of realization before someone took her by the arm and whispered something to her.

Remembering himself, Spock stepped back to the nearest console and pressed the announcement comm to active.

He did not know how long it was, how much time went by then, before he realized how his voice had caught in his throat and he was leaning over the computer system poised with unworded news, unable to grasp them into speech. He had never in his entire life experienced quite this incapacity to form words. The moment became tangibly rooted when Spock realized Sulu was now next to him, a hand resting on the side of the console after some aborted motion.

Sulu appeared to be exchanging a look with Chekov before he held down the mute on the comm and said, "Listen, I'll do it."

Spock was on his way back to the bridge as the announcement emptied the rest of the ship of any clammering noise, dimming all motion almost to a frozen stop.

"Attention, all crew members..." Sulu hesitated and then left his name out of the announcement, possibly out of hesitation to state his rank. "I regret to inform all of you that after an unforeseeable irregularity in our readings of the transporter functions, I have just been informed that a rescue of the missing away team has been evaluated as a practical impossibility..."

Word had clearly made it to some through private comm systems even faster than official information; Spock's slower than normal pace through one corridor took him by the sight of Nurse Chapel crying tightly into the shoulder of a communications officer. At every turn he was met with the sight of people clutching some proximal sleeve, hands over mouths in shock at what they were hearing.

"Captain James T. Kirk, Lieutenant Nyota Uhura, Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott, and Lieutenant Commander Leonard McCoy are as of now permanently missing. The _Enterprise_ will now report to the nearest Starfleet outpost; duties must be carried out at full capacity until then. The crew will be informed of any other pertinent information as it comes. Sulu out."

The situation being one that significantly paralyzed productivity for the next two days of travel, Spock felt it necessary to arrange a meeting for the sole purpose of rank reassignment, as if to gently remind those who now inherited certain responsibilities that they were fully capable of doing them. Perhaps this was some reassurance Spock needed himself, but for the time he found himself in the first of several companionable confrontations with Sulu, who called him out on seeming hesitant.

"None of that is needed," Spock said in mild dismissal, and abruptly added, "but if you feel capable of assuming command for two days, I believe I will require 48 hours off duty." He ignored a rocky surface of bitterness and discomfort with putting an actual number on the emotional process, but it was more than he would have allowed himself in a similar situation years ago.

"Why?" Sulu blinked and then mumbled, "I mean, what should I state as the formal reason?"

"I should think I am in a state of extreme emotional stress and temporarily unfit for duty. Nurse Chapel," he said just as shortly as she was in the vicinity, "I require an evaluation of my mental health as is routinely required in the instance of duty relief, if you could ensure that I am on the roster."

Christine Chapel looked struck, if only in the way one did when they were just barely able to juggle thinking about more than one thing. "Oh. We don't have to do that right away...But I'll have someone let you know."

He nodded and walked away.

 

While it was a habit Spock had at first found a bit more lax in decorum than appropriate, Jim had begun shortly into the five-year mission to foster a neighborly area around the living quarters of the ship by leaving the door to his quarters open when he was off duty and requiring no privacy. It had become somewhat customary and unique to the social atmosphere aboard the _Enterprise_ , but Spock's first day on leave marked the first time he left the door open himself.

He had been sitting at his desk attempting some reorganization of his history data when his consideration had landed and then froze on the chess set still stranded in an unfinished game. He did not realize the presence of Christine Chapel until she gently cleared her throat.

When he looked up she seemed to be aware of something in the room she was interrupting. "Is this a bad time, sir?"

Spock was already noting a new transparency to Chapel's character that had emerged since the disappearance. She had often been a little fumbling in his presence; he had soon after first meeting her neutrally observed that she gave signs of being physically attracted to him. As of now there was no more shy sparkle in her eyes, and she was now speaking to Spock at all times with the type of frankness she'd previously reserved for medical duty. He did not have to wonder what had incited the sudden change, as if she was suddenly but permanently more indifferent about certain things.

"What is the problem, Nurse Chapel?"

She held out a PADD she'd carried in and in a burdensome way explained, "We're kind of dealing with an incident that is too unorthodox to be recognized by the record system?"

"How is this in the realm of your duties?" he asked when he looked at the form on the screen.

"That would be the problem, sir. The accident wasn't reported as crew members going missing because—I mean, obviously that's a whole different set of protocol and paperwork—and it wasn't reported as a general discharge. But we have to release formal messages to the families explaining what happened, which usually happens with deaths and needs signatures from the medical workers who were on duty at the time of death, only they're not _dead_ , so I don't know what to—"

"Yes, I see the dilemma. I will alter the records, if you are willing to leave them with me."

After a second she quietly said, "Sure," and set the PADD in front of him. Her gaze lingered on the chess set, and then she seemed to be talking herself into something. "Captain, um. While I'm here, I might as well notify you that I intend to request a transfer to go back to work on Earth."

Spock looked up, his back straightening in surprise. "Please state your reason."

He couldn't place the cause for the sudden coldness in her demeanor, except that she was frustrated and did not want to betray too much of her emotions at the moment. Spock found he could very well relate, but it was making their conversation increasingly stilted with such behavior on both ends.

"I'm not proud of it, but I can't honestly say I enlisted for the right reasons. I won't bore you with the personal details." She took a breath. "When certain things didn't work out, I wanted to drop out then, but then I...made such a close friend in Nyota, as you know. And I did enjoy my work, but I'm not even sure I will feel as challenged without working under Doctor McCoy. It's a sentimental assumption, I guess, that I won't be able to enjoy my job again here, but I just can't see the work outweighing how it's going to feel being surrounded by all the memories. I would just feel better starting all over again on a different ship, if I can't return to work somewhere back home. I know that it's a selfish reason to want a transfer and I understand if you won't authorize it, but I wanted to be honest. Sir."

"I will note your request without judgment. As the current captain of this vessel, I am obliged to say I will regret the loss of your service, Miss Chapel." He meant it. He realized that he wished there was more he could ask her.

But she let out a bit of a laugh, dark but not quite bitter. "Come on. You'll barely notice I'm gone."

He was not quite able to form a reply before she quickly turned and left.

 

Over the next month, Sulu found his footing in his new position. Spock had consistently found him an unpredictable person, the type who occasionally came out of a seemingly submissive nature to give a strongly worded disagreement only when it felt necessary to him. Spock found after a point that he made a sharp first officer, if not one who would have been very fitting with a captain more like Jim. Sulu was usually less vocal than Spock had been as X.O., but when his input was solicited he always proved that he was thinking situations through far more often than he appeared to be.

Spock did not personally see to the issues of the four prisoners who labeled themselves members of a "Terran Empire," only pausing from a day on the bridge to concede with the security personnel that they were best kept in the brig, this deliberation unofficially affected by the fact that a Klingon they had to apprehend for some involvement in piracy quickly expressed some unease with them after being in the cell just next to them for only a night. Spock had to at first give the crew some hard words about not entering the brig without a valid reason, as many were clogging it with their grim curiosity for the first day or two.

They finally received their orders from Starfleet to take them to Terra rather than an outpost so that an ideal amount of psychological evaluation could be applied. Spock emphasized being ethically objective, perhaps uncomfortable with the notion of them being expected to obey laws that were entirely foreign to them in his discomfort with the possibility that his former companions would not be receiving the same treatment.

He was granted an amount of authority on the matter of the exiles' fate as if it was some consolation tool. It did not console him in the least.

He may have been less surprised by their eventual escape if he had been surveying their behavior more closely, but those who had been on security duties had warned all relevant personnel not to allow them out of their cells under any circumstances. This required, therefore, that any kind of emergency would require someone to enter the cell rather than escort them to medical services, and this was in the end used to their advantage.

He was planetside with Sulu when it happened. As reported to him later, the events transpired from the point when a scuffle was acted out between the prisoners, resulting intentionally in Scott's counterpart sustaining enough injuries to require a small amount of medical attention. It was unknown how the prisoners managed to steal the phaser from the member of security who let in Nurse Riner, because in some kind of orchestrated attack, the nurse was struck unconscious before she had the chance to alert anyone on her comm unit of the emergency. The four exiles quickly after managed to get an ensign held at gunpoint, demanding the bridge to block all communications and supply them with an escape pod.

Lieutenant Freeman, the officer whose phaser was stolen by Kirk, was the one person killed in the incident.

Sulu more or less matched Spock's professional façade when they were first informed, but once they were discussing it in private with the senior of security he was clearly frustrated about the disaster. Spock assumed it was the matter of him never before being in such a high position of responsibility when the ship lost a member, though it was illogical to assume their absence had been a factor in the success of the escape, and either way, they'd had no way of communicating even when they began to suspect something was amiss.

Spock had encountered many kinds of immorality in his own universe, but something about those four, masked in the bodies of familiar friends, resonated with the crew much more terribly than anything heard of before on their mission. Spock rarely had nightmares, but something about the escape of the four counterparts made him uneasy in his bed for weeks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

30 DAYS.

 

 

 

 

"Are you sleeping enough?...You can put your shirt back on." Nurse Chapel took a last check at his records, pacing back a bit and peeking through the edge of the privacy curtain in response to hearing someone come in.

"No, I do not believe I am acquiring sufficient sleep." Spock had never been in the habit of changing subjects, but he now said, "Miss Chapel, I should inform you that Starfleet has reviewed your request for a transfer and that it may be up to a year before they can consider it an appropriate time to relieve officers in your position from galactic duty. You may know that there have already been two other transfer requests made recently, and if those officers are given their respective requests, I hope you realize it is because of the quality of your service that you are considered indispensable at present."

She blinked at the oddly angled comment, the way he was straightening out his quickly placed shirt and sitting up ramrod straight in order to assume some presence of authority that wasn't entirely achieved sitting on the medical bed. She said flatly, "Alright. I'm not exactly surprised."

"This is not a rejection of your intentions, I hope you realize, however Starfleet is still having to be unaccommodating because of the many cadets that were lost in the Nero incident..."

Chapel did not look like she was quite listening to him now. She swerved, still in a slightly pacing way, tapping her nails against the PADD she was holding before she lightly tossed it onto the bed next to where Spock sat. "How are you handling this?"

Spock was in no mood to be pedantic, so instead of pointing out the illogical change of note, he only raised an eyebrow.

"I mean...those people. They _killed_ one of us, maybe somebody they even recognized from where they come from, like it was nothing."

Spock took a moment to consider himself before saying, "I do not wish to discuss this."

"Well, who am I supposed to talk to about it, sir?" Chapel's voice rose in frustration, a note to it as if it was laughing at its own insubordination just before she managed to remember the propriety of the setting. "I have no idea how to ask you if you're doing alright. You and I may have never exactly been buddies, but Nyota was my best friend on this ship. I know, maybe better than anyone else here, that you've just lost the most important people in your professional and personal life all in one go, and I'm trying to tell you that I'm here, I have some idea of how this feels."

"And you're leaving as soon as you can," Spock reminded her.

Her expression pulled back in, a deliberate blankness coming over her. Something about it disarmed him.

"Nurse Chapel," he found himself dutifully asking, "are you alright?"

"...No." She shook her head, again and again. "I'm not okay. I have these awful dreams, because four of the most undeserving people I can think of have been thrown into some place that I can't see, but I know it can't be good, and people around me keep talking as if...they're just dead. When it could be worse than that for all we know. If everyone around them is like those people? If you could tell me, logically, that I should be grieving, rather than worrying, rather than panicking, maybe eventually I could move on. But it just won't leave me alone."

It was as if she'd solved some riddle, pointed out something in a picture he'd been staring at for days, or for weeks. She looked at him, and immediately her expression was pulled into confusion.

"What? Are you okay?"

"...Of course I'm not alright," Spock said.

"Captain?"

Spock was replacing his uniform over his undershirt in a short series of movements. "The title would be acting captain, to be exact."

She stammered after him, "Sir?..."

 

The meeting was tacked into a crevice between second and third shift. Two thirds of the crew who had any esteemed skill with sciences were present, as well as a number who straggled in from engineering, and some others who simply wanted to watch, filling the conference room all the way to the back. No one really knew what the meeting was about, but there was an anxious buzz of curiosity that Spock took almost a minute to signal down. It reminded him of academy students getting restless before the weekend, only the stirrings were not so elated.

"I understand the circumstances of this meeting were not explained in the announcement, so I wish to commence promptly." Spock said, "As you all know, we recently had a very unfortunate and also very unique incident in which we lost four members of our crew, including our captain. We have since the accident proceeded with the five-year mission as planned. And we have no need to suspend the mission. However."

Spock's pause held the room in a transparent and yet motionless shift of curiousity, as if no one dared to anticipate or speculate. He continued.

"I believe that the recent violent actions of the counterparts from this other universe, who are the only individuals we have to represent the world in which we must speculate our missing crew members do now inhabit, give us reason to reevaluate the grounds for procedural dismissal of the mission that caused the four to become stranded. It is after all imperative that we mourn our losses, but it is imperative also that Starfleet members resort to all possible measures not to leave behind people who are still alive. For these reasons, I have evaluated the status of the events of stardate 3163 and promoted it to the necessity of a rescue mission."

The room hissed into dialogue, several hands of the more earnest raising at once.

"I have spoken already with Ensign Chekov, who is aware of a theory of how we may proceed in attempting a deliberate transdimensional leap." The room was already quiet again. "We will require the help of anyone with an excelling grasp on sequential mathematics and algorithms. There may be further opportunities for other members of the crew with further developments; what I must clarify is that the project is _secondary_ to our preexisting mission, and is also compulsory. I must stress that this mission will, in all practical considerations, embody your extracurricular time. Anyone who is not comfortable considering at this point should not be sitting in this room; you have three minutes to evaluate."

"You're just full of surprises," Sulu leaned in to mutter while the crowd tangled and dispersed.

"I assumed Chekov would have mentioned the matter to you."

"That isn't what I meant." Sulu looked more directly at Spock now for a second, conveying a more serious assuring tone before he nodded and said, "I'm with you. I have no clue if there's any chance in hell we can do anything, but I'm with you on this."

After the three minutes were up, the room had forty-three people.

Once Chekov was done explaining the mere basics of Valoit's theoretical equations, it held twenty.

Sulu was the first to say, "Let's get to work."

 

"I'm still not understanding..." Chapel fixed a pondering look down on her lunch. "We already know the equation?"

"Valoit's equation is a proposed figure which cannot be effectively tested until contact with a parallel universe has been made, though one is also at leisure to experiment with spacial irregularities which appear to be possibly transdimensional, which is apparently what Valoit was doing when he was attempting to perfect the science..."

"I thought Valoit was still alive?"

"He is, but it must be noted he did not have the type of motive we do. After attempting to exact the figure for some fifteen years, he retired the project to a hiatus."

"He got bored and gave up," Sulu translated, from where he and Chekov sat with their dining table inched not quite up next to Chapel and Spock's.

Spock considered how to explain further. "While it is a rough abbreviation of the calculations we are attempting, if you imagine an algebraic equation where the result of our universe depends on some unknown variable interacting with the other universe...we, having various statistics on the matter through the dimension gap, are able to repeatedly attempt to solve what we are calling the 'interaction variable,' which could be part of a very large number of calculations."

"And how many permutations are projected to be possible?" Chapel winced. "Like several thousand?"

"Over six million."

Chapel had to slap her hand over her fork in a flustered attempt to keep it from clanging off the table when she dropped it. Chekov and Sulu were exchanging looks as she gathered herself into a schooled look of innocent interest. "Well. I mean, that's good. It's something."

No one asked the long, unbearable line of questions that should have come after, the harsh hypotheticals. (If it worked, and if they could use it to actually get there, if and if and if, how in the name of any deity or science could they depend on actually _finding_ them?)

Possibly the question did not occur to others the way it did to him. Perhaps it was something of a default assumption about their whereabouts that they would still be somewhere in the parallel vicinity of the _Enterprise_ , as if that would necessarily be good or safe for them, as if the vessel even had anything like a static location. The circumstances of the gap that swamped the four there depended on an overlap of the ships' points in space, but Spock did not find it hard to imagine that the mere events caused by the transporter accident bumped both worlds off of their correlation by the irregular behavior of those in exile. The prisoners, after all, had escaped.

Spock hoped, with a humming constant faith but also a deep unease at the idea of their absolute distance, that his companions had managed to get away.

 

Spock was promptly informed when three of the counterparts, all except Scotty, were found and arrested on a small fleet-colonized desert planet where they had landed after having mechanical difficulties with the pod they stole. A security inspection of the vessel suggested they had been stealing several parts from local merchants for weeks in an attempt to leave the planet, but it was the astounding oversight of simply behaving too brashly that got them noticed by the locals. McCoy and Kirk had been in a violently escalating argument close to a recreational camping site, when a teenager had apparently been too wary of even walking by them on her way to her cabin and went to find the authorities.

Uhura was located rather quickly after that, and none of the three seemed to have any idea where Scott was. He was said to have disappeared only days before. After hours of grueling interrogation the only thing any of them offered was the assumption that Scott had found some other vessel to steal and decided pretty easily it only had room for one.

After the three of them were shipped back to Earth for intensive rehabilitation, Spock was eventually asked, just as before, for any input he had on what should be done with them.

"Split them up. Absolutely." Chapel voiced this agreement with not quite the sentiment he'd expressed; her tone suggested one of horror at the idea of letting them be anywhere near each other considering their conspiring when they were on the ship, but Spock had honestly considered it the best choice for the interests of whatever psychologist might have to somehow sit them in an armchair. He had figured, admittedly with some evident idealism, that being separated from each other and simply immersed in very different moral ideas may allow them to less self-consciously evaluate their situations and perhaps be less defensive against change.

He had little hope, though. The only one of them he spoke to was Uhura. Upon being placed in confinement she was allowed one transmission; once the _Enterprise_ was within the region she asked for him, and he was grudgingly indebted to follow up on her request.

Spock could not describe the grazing discomfort of that conversation. She began with a highly dramatic plea for sympathy, insisting she was frightened and had been helpless to do anything but cooperate with the others' plans in case they saw her as weak and turned against her, and had been getting along that way for much of a year. She was very affecting and Spock had a tremble of doubt over whether it was a fabrication. In the end he coldly asked how Uhura had surmised that her counterpart and himself had been "amiable," the testing implication being that he knew he was "being played," as Jim would have said.

Uhura leaned back, one side of her mouth crooking up into something wry; she said, "Yeah, it was worth a shot." Naturally he did not mention that he was afraid if she'd underestimated his intelligence just a little, pushed a bit harder, she may have been more successful.

McCoy, Spock was told, was being the most cooperative, if extremely defensive and generally unpleasant to be around. If any of them had in fact been pressured into their crimes, the unofficial consensus was that the finger pointed at the doctor. Shortly after he was admitted into a relatively hospitable institution it was imparted to Spock that he had textbook symptoms for manic depression, if not post-traumatic stress disorder. Spock didn't entertain memories of the few times he was in their company, though he did remember McCoy's nervous trembles, the way the supposed doctor had seemed less menacing but more unpredictable. In a candid conversation with his counselor, a Doctor DeSando remarked that morally pinpointing him was something he would be arrogant to presume he could do.

James Kirk offered nothing. He had refused to participate in any kind of interrogation, even when security threatened the worst punishments, if he refused to even submit to a psychological evaluation. For his stubbornness, he remained the prime suspect with the crime of killing Ensign Freeman and was placed in a high-security holding facility close to Tokyo, pending trial.

Weeks later, an explosion triggered by a phaser that had been dangerously tampered with blew an entire side off of the prison building, resulting in twenty-six deaths, many serious injuries, and the escape of several prisoners, including Kirk. If the reckless method of triggering the explosion was in fact Kirk's work, no one between the witnesses and the forensics team knew of a way he might have had direct access to the phaser, but the conundrum held no interest for Spock; he had seen Jim accomplish more improbable things. He understood why Kirk had refused any cooperation even when it was in his best interests: For him it hadn't mattered. He had been determined, and capable, of somehow escaping.

 

A couple weeks back, Sulu had come into Spock's quarters holding a couple small crates filled with an assortment of things, and Spock had easily guessed what it all was. Because the captain's and first officer's quarters were identically sized, Sulu had suggested simply moving him into Jim's old cabin. The offer had probably not only been what seemed sensible but, in a way, a thoughtful gesture on his part.

"I should have done this a while ago. You probably know the captain didn't really keep a lot of stuff on the ship, so I was just letting a lot of it still live around for a while, but I figured it was about time I give it to you. I mean...I don't know who else would..." Sulu trailed off, shrugging sadly at the boxes he was hesitating to set on Spock's desk.

"You can leave them there. Thank you, Sulu."

Spock had proceeded to ignore the objects completely until now.

There were several data and reading PADDs, old-fashioned paper books of an unpredictable variety, oddly fashioned objects Spock could have imagined his mother labeling "knick-knacks." Several of the books had other paper and novelty items tucked between pages. _A People's History of the Galaxy_ sandwiched an old pressed flower; two pages of some forgotten fantasy volume hugged what Spock realized was a wedding invitation Jim's parents had sent to Christopher Pike, long ago.

The first thing that gave Spock's heart a quiet jolt was a glossy sheet tucked into a Kundera paperback: It leaned up out of the pages and the memory was already nudging at him when he suspected he already knew what it was. He opened the book to slide out the narrow strip with its photos separated in panels, that day cracking right open in his mind.

Spock, Jim, McCoy and Nyota had all, by some coercion from the captain, ended up on a particularly Starfleet-centric leisure establishment on the next planet from a Federation outpost; having made no specific plans for the evening, they found themselves spending several colorfully idle hours at a vacationing club that hosted an array of old-fashioned Terran activities.

The four of them were just outside when something Jim quickly realized was a very antique photo booth caught his attention, and in the next moment he and Nyota were skidding onto this common ground of happy insistence that someone just had to use it. Nyota had had some alcohol and was exaggeratedly enthusiastic, and then disappointed that similarly old-fashioned coins were required to operate the mechanism and they would have had to win them by playing some of the video games inside. Nyota took several minutes to explain the overcomplicated traditions of arcades to Spock while McCoy snickered at his questions.

Jim went into the club for a drink and when he returned in some fifteen minutes casually clinking into Nyota's palm a handful of the plastic tokens he had managed to wrangle from several other vacationers, her face fell in a sweet little way and then wrapped to a smile. She was so innocently touched by the gesture that a surprised Jim was the one she took by a looped arm off to the photo booth. Spock and McCoy were left to continue speculating about an upcoming mission and only a minute later the two emerged from the booth, sniggering and almost tripping on each other, Nyota stuffing the photos into Jim's front pocket and returning to Spock's side with a happy hugging of his arm.

While it may have seemed to some onlooker that these actions were as inconsequential to Spock as anyone else, it was something in which he'd harbored an affectionate peripheral interest. He had never quite understood, through most of the first year he served with all of these people, why Jim and Nyota had not seemed capable of becoming friends. He admired many similar qualities in both of them, and had said as much to Nyota on a couple occasions. Even if with regret, she repeatedly dismissed the possibility of having anything more than efficient camaraderie with the captain; it offset something in Spock that he couldn't quite talk about as a significant concern.

It was the fact that over time Nyota had doubtlessly grown to admire Jim as a leader, as a superior, but seemed unable to fully trust him in any other capacity, and unable to help it. Spock had never wanted to pry too much at it; he only expressed his regret over the situation by pointing out that he and McCoy, by contrast, had finally become more amiable.

"Come on, you and the doctor need less help being buddies than either of you would admit," she'd said, and added, "and you two have to do a lot more of the crazy work together. Nothing on the bridge is ever that personal."

But her refusal to entertain the possibility was one day delivered with a more understanding look in her eyes.

When he'd thought the subject had passed because of the softness in her expression, she came out of some reverie, smiled at him and said, "He means a lot to you, doesn't he?"

The concept of photos as valuable souvenirs had always somewhat escaped but also fascinated him, given that they seemed to invite a combination of the contrived and the genuine to one's own history. There was a frustration about the mix of posed falsities and graceless, true, accidental moments that could be captured in a single image. These panels of various pictures of Jim and Nyota were often theatrical, but also real, the brightness in their expressions undeniable and stunning. Jim had dug out his reading glasses from his overnight bag, and they switched from his face to Nyota's in the second picture, in which they were both cross-eyed. In the next picture the glasses were pushed up atop her head while they displayed matching hand signals which must have had some meaning Spock did not recognize.

In the last panel, nothing about Jim was even remotely posed, as it depicted the flushed impulsive action of Nyota crooking him in her direction by an arm around his neck and planting a good-humored kiss on his cheek, and he was caught looking much like she'd looked when he walked up to give her the game tokens only minutes before, just for a second thrown softly off his guard by the unexpected gesture. It was all of this that made the inconsequential little object so meaningful, that it was as if he was able to hold in his hand the very moment when, not mainly for his sake but in his absence, these two important people in his life had begun to care about each other.

Spock's vague projection of his crewmates as they would be now had blossomed into the type of zealous fancy that would amuse Jim, not just out of his smugness but in his way of smirking in surprise whenever Spock displayed any kind of imagination. It was something almost romantic and picaresque: four bodies stealing through some societal underbelly, nudging and reshaping the course of its future as if some steel-belted cosmos could turn its head, transforming, at the mere motion of a kind hello.

In an idealized vision like this, Jim appeared in Spock's mind as something that strengthened somehow with weathering: Some vibrant force under his surface, like the black dangerous heat at the center of a sun, became charged up with a deep and angry virtue at the disturbance. Spock remembered being frankly surprised at the first signs of heroism in that man and he took a proud faith in that contradiction now, just as Nyota always appeared to him too, in her seeming inversion of that type of boldness.

He always imagined her next to him, yielding and warm as ever in the fluid nature of her; but impenetrable, tall and sharp, both changed and unchanging.


	2. The Scorpion and the Frog

The collection of crew members involved with attempting the rescue mission had been uncreatively nicknamed "the Club" throughout the ship. Over time, the line where this group stopped and started became more of a blurred line; a few ensigns were able to help with the basic data organization in their spare hours. There were more people who simply assisted by bringing in food, delivering any information that Spock may want to know about the activity on the rest of the ship, or in some other way showing that they didn't forget that a highly time-consuming extracurricular project was still going on. 

Chapel was often at the fringes of the group. When their meetings went far into third shift, she'd show up after getting off work with a pair of sweatpants and a book to read, ready to save anyone a few minutes by going to grab them a drink. For the most part, it was the silent and casual company that was assuring, the fact that certain strings kept the project from feeling entirely separate from the rest of the crew and therefore less tied down by some foolish hope.

The work did well for Sulu. Burdened both by some understated grief and the stress of his new responsibilities, he'd become more irritable after the four had gone missing, and Chekov, worn into a more melancholy reaction during those first few weeks, had spoken to Sulu as if expecting him to lash out at any moment. Even Spock was aware that for some long stretch of days they hadn't spoken to each other at all, as if their sadnesses had vastly different currencies. The two now sat next to each other almost every night, sprawling an arm out to tap a finger at the other's temple when one of them started to look sleepy. 

The officers would enter to receive the casual without-looking-up greeting of partners entering each other's living quarters; Sulu or Ensign Manning would lift a PADD with a "Cross-check?" and it would be in Chekov's hand as he swept past on his way back to his chair with an apple carried in his teeth; when Sulu dismissed himself with vague complaints about having to make a shift at four hundred he'd receive a couple voices chorusing, "Goodnight, Sir" and give them an informal smirking salute.

The assistance revolved around about eighteen people, and the much more constant fixtures were Spock, Sulu, and Chekov, with Chapel humming frequently at the edges. After a while the project became most of what Chekov and Sulu talked about even during their free time, the two trying to find some way to condense the permutations or simplify the calculations for the other people in the crew. 

They took breaks during their work that consisted of unpredictable conversations: Chapel betting Sulu that Chekov couldn't do a perfect handstand or trading stories about recent shore leaves like the simple entertainment of hearsay was some forgotten gem. On quieter evenings, an ensign would mention something about the missing members, something surprisingly kind McCoy had said, or that time Scotty managed to fix someone's busted tricorder in less than five minutes even though he was blasted on six Rob Roys. 

No one talked explicitly of whether they truly believed the work would lead anywhere. The probability that it would was low, but they proceeded with the intent locomotion of gambling addicts, with hope hung lightly over them instead of the cold inertia that had been there right after the disappearance.

In hindsight, it was a waste of time. But there was a fixed rhythm to those evenings they spent around an increasingly familiar crowd, sometimes in the conference room and sometimes moving into the observatory, and it reminded Spock of the smoothly latching routines that had fixed into the bridge crews under Jim's command and which Spock had not yet managed to reawaken on what had now become of the ship. Spock had served with perfectly efficient teams prior to being persuaded to be Jim Kirk's first officer and he had no concerns about the ability of the _Enterprise_ 's current crew; Jim had after all selected a great one which he hadn't taken for granted would never need to respond to greater responsibilities one day. However there was still some resonance that Spock knew everyone missed, something that was merely skeletal in its arrangement or like a final chord of music with fingers not quite reaching all of the notes. Spock felt that absence least of all when he was with the others in that small room.

 

One morning Sulu gave some short response that made Chekov roll his eyes and huff off to eat breakfast by himself. Sulu and Spock went down on an away mission that day with Lieutenant Loneya, the new senior communications officer. It went without dangerous incident, but it felt exceptionally devoid of enthusiasm. A few hours after they arrived back on the ship, Sulu appeared at Spock's quarters with something to tell him. By that point Spock already knew something was wrong. 

"Pavel was concerned about how there don't seem to be any correlations occurring between the exponent of the decreasing variables and the—"

"As was I. What has he found?" Spock interrupted; he wasn't one to often demand the short version, but Sulu got the message.

"He thinks—honestly, it sounds a little crazy, but it does kind of check out—that the other universe's particles behave slightly differently than ours under this kind of pressure stasis, which...makes the equation we currently have a total bust."

Pavel Chekov was one of the few people who had repeatedly managed to not only impress Spock but do it in varied, surprising, almost baffling ways. What Spock had just heard out of Sulu's mouth, casually passed along as if it was merely a request for a schedule change, was an entirely new theory about transdimensional relativism. If it hadn't meant what it did, Spock would have been pulled straight to the point with an intrigued blink in his eyes. 

What he did at the time was make himself look steadily back at Sulu for a moment, before finally letting his eyes fall down to his desk in a heavy, slow exhale. "We will proceed with the work as planned, but the others should be told about Chekov's doubts. I will have a talk with him later and see if we can come up with any suggestions. Thank you, Sulu."

"Sir..." Sulu faltered before saying, "I have a suggestion. But I don't think you'll like it."

Spock looked at him expectantly.

He dove right in. "See if any of the counterparts want to help us."

Spock could feel his eyebrow stretching to the ceiling.

"Well, even if we knew where Kirk was...hell no," Sulu said in a scoff, "but Uhura or McCoy? Maybe if we withheld enough of what we know...asked either of them if they know anything about this theory and see if they come up with something that's not in our books. It's damn unlucky we don't know where Scott is, if they're anything like ours he'd be the most help with that kind of thing, but..."

It was with a heavy sort of disbelief, observing the response himself in a dull shock, that Spock looked up from considering his desk and blankly said, "I am going to consider that."

 

The _Enterprise_ was due for a Terran shore leave/inspection landing, and Sulu remarked that he'd rather wave it off and stay at work but couldn't really get out of the pressure of going to visit his parents. Over the same conversation, Spock mentioned that he had a number of matters to attend to and would be taking leave; Chekov, who was planning on staying aboard, gave a sardonically sympathetic "Ay-yay-yay" just as he polished off his yogurt.

The infamous rescue operation had already stirred through the gossip lines, which even Spock found to be improbably more reliable than warp speed at times. Media was scrambling at every opportunity to sensationalize, and no doubt scrutinize, their efforts, and Spock was grateful that being planetside on official business made him less of an immediate target than Sulu might be.

His first priority, however, was nothing official.

Come his first morning on Terra, Spock became thoughtfully guarded throughout his shuttle connections, attempting to get some equations untangled while occasionally enjoying the views, until he was in the dry gold atmosphere of Iowa. After what felt like hours of uncertain anticipation, Spock knocked at the front door of the old-fashioned two-story house. It was a few moments, the inhale-exhale of wind fluting in and out of the partly opened sash windows, before Winona Kirk came to the front door.

His visit consisted of what she described as "talking shop," and also of long silences passing naturally in her kitchen while she sipped at her mug of coffee, as if they had shared a thousand mornings before then.

After rinsing out a couple glasses and blindly reaching for something on the windowsill, Winona lightly clapped her hand onto the wood, let out a frustrated sigh.

Spock asked, "Is something wrong?"

"Not exactly...Ever since yesterday I've felt like some things in the house have been moved around. I was on the comm last night meaning to call the police. I ended up comming my therapist instead." She backed away a bit but didn't look at Spock as she answered, as dazed as if she were talking to herself. "Nothing's missing. It's like I did all this cleaning and I don't remember. My head's nowhere these days."

Without saying much about it, only watching, they turned on the transmission of a brief interview someone from the media had managed to get with Sulu. The recording showed him at an outdoor table of some restaurant, looking distracted and as if he was only willing to talk until the arrival of someone he was waiting for.

"Look, I get that people might find it strange, having so much determination to find some people we only worked with for a year, but..." Sulu shook his head, his explanation a little stammered but very certain. "A year in space is a lot longer than a year. I mean, Jim Kirk risked his life to save mine when we hadn't even known each other for an hour, and then it was hardly the first time something like that happened. Life on the _Enterprise_ never slows down, and it's important that everybody looks after each other. This is just another mission gone wrong, as far as I'm concerned. Those four aren't getting left behind if there's anything we can do about it."

Spock looked at Winona. The glow in her eyes was both hopeful and very sad.

Spock allowed himself to wonder for the first time what response his current sort of tenacity would collect from those who weren't around; in some ways the project was plainly foolish, but even as he acknowledged this he considered it still a worthwhile pursuit. Probably Nyota would have shaped his reasons as being part of a noble nature. Jim might have attributed his actions to simple stubbornness, though whether it would be noted with exasperation or with a knowing smile Spock could not be sure.

When Winona was seeing him out later she said, "If you ever need anything. And I mean anything...You make sure you ask?" 

"And the same to you, Miss Kirk," he said with a nod.

There was a brief moment when Spock suspected Winona Kirk was going to do something like hug him, but with an uncertain smile she decided against it and said, "Thank you for coming."

After that Spock was back on the transport for a ride which for him could not take long enough, to get to the city in North Carolina where Nyota Uhura was being held.

Spock had hoped they at least had good leverage. Many humans had an ingrained instinct for the value of having a home, and it only seemed natural that most of them, if given the option, would rather return to familiar surroundings and that this would be a suitable motive for cooperating with their captors. 

Uhura surprised him. It was enough to make him wonder, not for the first time, if she had been telling the truth when she implied she had often been merely an unwilling accessory in the behavior of her crew. He had no doubt, however, that even if it were the truth, she was only using the truth to bully him into meaningless guilt. 

He could not imagine if there had ever been any relationship between her and his own counterpart worth speaking of, if there was any real reason for it, but Uhura took a particular joy in mocking him. She wore Nyota's face and Nyota's name and he could feel in the electric movement of her that she wanted to hurt him. He had no desire to understand it, and a part of him was almost grateful that she gave him nothing but some vague hint of where Scott might be. He left feeling unreasonably exhausted and for a while he took a seat on a bench outside, silently reeling and straying between too many thoughts at once, until his communicator began to beep.

That was when James Kirk got to him.

 

At the cafe across from the institution, a server's mouth popped open just slightly at the sight of a noticeably harried-looking Vulcan in a Starfleet uniform, and when Spock said, "I need to use your central communicator and a cross-connector," she was quick on her feet to get it for him.

In a few minutes she was nervously trying to offer him a cup of coffee as he responded quickly to the officer on the end of the comm line with,"Captain Spock requesting senior in communications management. I need an emergency private frequency trace under security code Athena Five-Seven-Eight-Nine; if my personal number is required it's Eleven-Beta-One-"

"We're receiving already, Captain. Trace is in progress, standby for actual."

Spock recognized the specialist who eventually came on as Jacob Mendez, whom he'd had as a student at the academy. "What's going on, Captain?"

"I've just received a birthday greeting from James Kirk."

The gaping most likely happening on the other end was almost audible, and Mendez fell into a very informal "No shit...Well, you know the frequency's bound to be scrambled like hell—"

"Regardless, I want you to send me back the data."

Spock possibly had no idea what he was doing until he had the information in front of him and suddenly realized what he had been thinking all along. The frequency algorithm that distorted the traceability of the location was at first glance extremely irregular, but upon inspection, Spock found the pattern. It was just under twenty-four minutes before Spock was back on the communicator, hanging up on Mendez to make a different contact.

"Domestic security. Please state the nature of the emergency."

"This is Captain Spock, currently of the U.S.S. _Enterprise_. I have located a fugitive."

 

The prisoner transport was hanging in Earth's atmosphere as some of the authorities still deliberated about where he would be held. For a small vessel, it maintained an impressive level of security, and Spock suspected that the complicated record-keeping involved with letting in a visitor would take longer than the meeting itself. 

He could admit he would not have cared if it was stalled for even longer, but in enough time he was let into one of the ship's twelve cell rooms, past the guard standing at the door which was at a distance of a few yards from the barred chamber in the middle. The room was dark, with dust illuminated into ribbons where the light came in through the slit windows that saw in on a stark white corridor instead of the scenery of space.

Beyond the old-fashioned cell bars, Kirk was doing push-ups.

Spock did not announce himself; he only stopped, holding his hands behind his back in a kind of sardonic imitation of respect, waiting. Kirk finally turned his head, then stopped and pushed himself to his feet in slow, aloof movements that accompanied a slow crack of a smirk. 

"Captain Spock of the U.S.S. _Enterprise_ ," Kirk said, coming right forward and leaning in a shoulder at one of the bars.

James Kirk was noticeably more muscular than Jim ever was; Spock recognized it as a possible side effect of restlessness in prolonged captivity, even though Kirk had been under no one's control for a brief time. However his hair seemed to always have been the way it was now, as Spock did remember it looking much the same when he'd first been aboard the _Enterprise_ ; it was in most ways the same length and style as Jim's had been, but it sprung up in a wilder mess, as if Kirk was in the habit of agitatedly running his hands through it too often.

For some intangible reason Spock found this the hardest thing to stomach: He didn't quite speak the same way. Something had often twisted with that lazy, jeering edge at Jim's words in a way that Spock had become aware put people off of him quite often. This Kirk's mannerisms were certainly tilted with a sharper swagger of arrogance, but the way he spoke was flatter and much more direct. At the first words he said, Spock already felt a cold shifting in the air, that sensation of prickling at the back of his neck. With Nyota Uhura, her manner of talking had been much the same as his Nyota's; it had been her words that reminded him she wasn't the same woman. With this man the difference was immediate, but some small sense of being around him was much the same. The combined effect suddenly made Spock miss Jim almost more than he could have thought was possible.

"Kirk," Spock said. "We have already established that this meeting must be brief, so I would advise you to quickly state your aim."

"Yeah. Sure," Kirk complied. "I've heard that you and yours have been trying to do some serious breakthroughs in transdimensional science?"

It quickly confirmed Spock's suspicions. "Are you proposing to assist us?"

"I thought you'd be quick."

"That's not a viable option."

"How come?"

"You're set to be tried for the murder of an officer."

"Oh. That." Kirk lazily rubbed his hand over his eyes. "Well, if it's such a sensitive topic, I don't see why you met me here at all..."

Spock was not at all sure how far he himself would be willing to take this. "Perhaps I am willing to propose certain options."

"Like?"

"Some regular communication between our vessel and where you're being held; a promise to let you return to your dimension if you are found to have had innocent motives."

"Nah, I don't think so. I need to be more actively involved. I'll have to be on the ship. If I have to be a prisoner on the ship, whatever."

"You do realize you're hardly in the position to determine the leverage? You're a maximum security threat."

"And helping you is probably my only way out of being in jail for the rest of my life. But helping you will be no less than fraudulent if I'm not able to do it in an environment where I can actually _be_ helpful. If the project doesn't get anywhere, I don't get anywhere. Do I get maybe five more minutes on this meeting, by the way, for all this fucking around the point?"

"You have yet to demonstrate what it is you will contribute."

"Got a PADD on you?"

Spock hesitated. "It would be better to confirm your intentions in a way that you cannot falsify."

Kirk's shoulders tightened after a second as he gathered what that meant. He backed away a bit to do some pacing. "I don't know about that."

Spock furrowed his brows slightly. "It would only be the most superficial invasion of privacy—"

"Yeah, right. How do I know it's not some sneaky litmus test?"

"If you're incapable of taking me at my word, you don't," Spock said calmly, "but that is your one option."

He turned it over in his mind for a matter of seconds. "Fine. But give me a couple minutes."

The guards shoved Kirk down onto the rickety visiting table across from Spock after letting him out of the cell, strapping a pair of cuffs around his wrists while he chewed petulantly on his bottom lip.

The mind meld took a great amount of discipline. Spock was inflicted with a sense of defensiveness in Kirk's mind which almost managed to obscure his perception of anything else, as if he could not shake the instinct of something lurking dangerously at the edges, about to pounce. Finally, though, the images and calculations came into focus, small bits of history that told a story handsomely enough; Kirk had thought about the fastest possible way to explain it. It was a vague outline, only meant to illustrate that the idea was there, but Spock's curiosity was piqued into it as if drawn to some unique artifact.

Something flickered just at the end, something that made Spock flinch, not just mentally but into a small jolt of physical motion. He almost hesitated in his promise to break the meld before seeing anything he didn't need to. After managing to wrench his mind away, his eyes met Kirk's gasping, agitated discomfort.

Spock foolishly asked. "What was—?"

Kirk shook his head. "I showed you everything you needed. Are we good?"

 

Bringing Kirk on board provoked some mild chaos.

Officers who would usually be too humble to approach Spock were putting aside timidness to ask for explanations he wasn't yet able to give, and getting through all the confusion to his quarters was an overlong swim. Sulu was there as he'd requested, and his expression made Spock give a weary tilt of his head.

"The only thing I am giving him is an audience," he assured. "It will be the prerogative of the team, once they have heard what he has to say, whether they believe he can be of help."

"You mean whether they'll be willing to work with a ruthless murderer," Sulu said flatly. "Some people aren't going to give a damn what he knows."

"I am aware," Spock said, shrugging out of his civilian coat. "I will ask for more of your input once the meeting has adjourned."

"...Look, are you sure you're not out of your mind?"

Spock looked over at where Sulu looked to have hesitated mid-stride instead of exiting the room. His hesitation was felt like a long sigh. He answered, "No."

 

Kirk was close to five minutes into his explanation when Chekov got confused, at which point everyone else started to look quite worried.

"So you _are_ going to be using an explosive?" The nineteen-year-old was squinting with a pained look at the hand-scribbled mess of data Kirk had distributed around the table.

"No. I mean, sort of. Keep up, children," Kirk mocked as he raked his hands through his hair, refreshing its windblown look. Everything was explained while shifting and pacing, sitting on the table, doing just about anything but sitting in a chair. "This technology: My father used it the day I was born, and he never recreated the results, but I spent years and years working to figure it out and I'm absolutely certain I could do it again even without the notes I had before, with some time. Anyway, it incinerates anything that it's directed on using a kind of, uh...violent ionic rippling that sort of works like going into a transporter beam and never coming out again. But it's dimensional, not just spacial. You shake the hell out of something and it sub-atomically crumbles apart from this brief interaction with what we can just call the 'wall,' because that's pretty much what it is; an actual forceful burst towards the gap that can't actually strip open the gap is basically like crushing something under huge amounts of force. It's just nice and quiet."

"And you're going to use this as a form of transport," Sulu said, "... _how_?"

"Okay, look, the reason we can't hitch into my universe from any old ionic interference is because there is a very particular way that the matter has to be different somehow. It's like, particles within particles that we even know about, it's theoretical, but all the testing seemed to suggest basically that our matter doesn't like your matter; and it really takes some very strong common thread, like the identical away teams, that kinda thing, for the collision to even be possible, because once stuff gets jostled up, it pops back into its own dimension."

"A technology operating off of the mere theory of alternate dimensional parallelism, requiring no extended contact with the universe." Spock knew he probably sounded impressed. "And assuming the binary theory of our dimensions, something like the model of matter versus antimatter."

"Exactly like that."

Sulu slowly prodded, "So, how do you plan on cheating the parallel?"

"That's the thing. We don't have to, because it's already been cheated." Kirk had a slight crooked grin, and the amount of engaged enthusiasm made Spock believe for the first time that he could be more or less tranquilized with intellectual activity, even while that impatient air was still present. "The whole adhesion doesn't just work on an extremely small level, it works on a very, very _big_ plane. These interferences have probably happened before, but relatively speaking, they almost never happen; universes are very good at staying their own universes, they've been at it a long time. And when something throws off the scale, when something leaks in and stays in the wrong place, it's like there's this force that wants to push back. So, if we make a big enough ka-boom, and we create a vessel equipped with the right kind of dampening field—I'll get to that later—that can get us to ride right through it, given that they're all there, and I'm here—"

"The four of them would be pulling us," Spock finished, knowing that this was slightly misleading paraphrase but somehow liking the elegance of it. "They are the imbalance."

"And the whole plane here would be pushing at me...Yeah, I thought you'd like that. Though of course since I'm going through with you, the initial journey will take a lot of test work to make sure we don't just bounce right back."

"And this is all...theoretical," Chekov said. Kirk ignored him, so then he asked, "Assuming this all works, you would have to bring as few members of this crew as possible in order to not disrupt the pull, yes?"

"Well, one is enough of a risk."

"You expect the captain to go on a rescue mission by himself? Just with you?" 

Sulu had just caught Spock's eye and saved him by clearing his throat. "That would be up to the captain, and anyway we'll cross that bridge when we get to it, if we even do."

Chekov received the look from Sulu that made him raise an eyebrow, then change the subject slightly. "So if it is essentially creating a _new_ ion storm, there would be a matter of limited time before the hole repairs itself?"

"Yes," Spock answered. "The return trajectory will be open for longer than it was for the storm that gave us contact with the universe before. We are most likely planning for a matter of weeks, but we cannot predict anything more specific than that."

"So if he doesn't find them," Kirk flippantly added, "he'll have to haul ass right back or get stranded himself."

Chekov made an overwhelmed little clicking with his tongue. Sulu asked, "What kind of machinery are we looking at?"

Spock said, "The project will require implementing as small a vessel as possible, something probably only marginally larger than an escape pod. Kirk has told me that over 60 percent of the work will involve designing and building the dampening field, as no existing hardware provides a shield with such particular parameters."

The first officer tapped his stylus against the table. "So if we do this...How much work does this add up to?"

"Considering the necessary procurement of materials, the time of voluntary labor, additional calculations and testing," Spock said, "the completion of the device could take at minimum eight months, at maximum nearly two years."

A couple small sounds of astonishment dropped around the room. In the moment of pause, Spock decided to have the security team escort Kirk out of the room and wait in the corridor. James gave a somewhat lascivious expression to the woman who put his cuffs back on; she led him out with a stiff jerk, and Spock made one of a few mental notes to himself.

Once he had left, Sulu's expression lightened a little, as if he was resigned to the dark humor of the situation. "So, when the captain gets back...no one better ever tell him that asshole just might be smarter than he is."

 

Spock caught up with the security team and volunteered to escort Kirk back to the brig.

On the turbolift he was saying, "You are on this ship solely to provide your services to assist in the creation of a transdimensional device. If I ever come to believe that you are idling in your efforts to help us, I will no longer be willing to provide you amnesty and you will be sent to a holding facility where the Federation will handle you in whatever way they deem appropriate."

"Yeah, yeah—"

"This applies if I was to ever come to believe that you are withholding information that would be helpful to our pursuits," Spock continued. "At any time that you are not under my supervision, your behavior will be constantly monitored by members of security personnel, so be vigilant, Kirk, in your self-control. If you stray into the wrong corridor and my security team does not know exactly where you are, you will be considered a threat and removed from the ship. If you commit any act of violence while on board, I will, again, sacrifice you to the authorities."

Kirk pulled down the zipper of his drab gray jumpsuit a few inches, yawning.

"One other thing," Spock said almost casually. "If I ever come to know that you have made anything resembling even an ambiguous sexual advance at any member of this crew—regardless of their rank, race, sex, or—"

"Does that include you?" Kirk interrupted. When that was met with no hint of amusement, he held up his hands. "I just want to clarify my boundaries here."

"I think the term 'boundaries' strays too close to implying negotiable parameters..."

"Whatever, I get it. I bat an eyelash and I go back to the brass."

"I had not finished. For all you know I may consider the airlock in that instance."

"So touchy," he sang to the ceiling. Then he began, after a moment, to whistle something. 

The turbolift seemed to take longer to get to the brig level than anywhere else. Spock found himself wanting to fill the space with any kind of valuable information he could gather, but the first question he thought to interrupt with was, "I understand your father is alive?"

Kirk gave him a bored expression. "Unfortunately, yeah."

Spock ignored his gut response to that callousness. "He wasn't an inspiring figure to you."

"Only competitively. He sure as hell wasn't the reason I got tagged for the fleet."

"What do you mean?"

"I wound up wanted and convicted a couple years after I left school. They give you the option of serving your time in the military, or at least Pike was able to swing it that way when he liked the idea of having me in his debt...I figured rising to the rank of captain in a handful of years was a good enough 'Fuck you' to that," he finished explaining with a cocky raise of his brows.

"Did that happen when you were involved with a second encounter with Nero?"

"Yeah. So?"

Spock hesitated. "Did this encounter involve a singularity connected to a future version of your universe?"

"I tell you, that red matter time travel tango shit is not my style. What a mess, right? Ambassador You..." He stopped to give a vaguely mocking hand motion at Spock, "had to convince me to rise up in the ranks instead of fleeing the service right after the younger version of him marooned me on an ice rock...The dick. Me actually deciding to listen to the granddaddy version was the only good thing that came of that, though to this day I'm not sure why I listened."

After considering this, Spock asked, "Did he have anything else to say to you?"

"Yeah. He was one creepy old bastard," Kirk muttered. His tone became slightly more grim when he recounted, "I'd only met Spock that day of course...We were line-stepping all over each other even then. And then his counterpart told me that, depending on the type of man I chose to be, I would either be the closest man to Spock, or I would be his 'most bitter adversary.' His words."

"...And which did you turn out to be?" Spock asked at length.

"Oh..." Kirk grunted, a mix of rueful and amused as he recalled, "I knew even then that it was always gonna be both."

The turbolift doors opened before Spock could think what to ask in response to that; he continued showing him back to the brig in vaguely troubled silence.


	3. Wish You Were Here

"Not to deny the value of your support," Spock said, "but how can you be 'on my side' if you do not believe that what I'm doing is advisable?"

One side of Chapel's mouth quirked as she looked from side to side for a chair to pull up. He quickly pushed the smaller desk chair out from behind the table and she took it, settling across from him. "You're hiding in here eating dinner all by yourself and you wanna act like you're not aware that a lot of the crew is pissed off at you?"

He set his eyes on hers briefly, then said to his soup, "I am not hiding."

"Mm-hmm."

He attempted to give her more of a warning glance, but it lasted briefly before he obligingly offered her one of his oranges.

"Thanks." Only when she was almost done peeling off the skin did she look at him seriously again. "How many transfer requests have you gotten since you brought Kirk on board?"

He could have told her that information wasn't open to anyone who simply asked, given the occasionally delicate nature of transfers. He admitted, "Nine."

Her movements paused. "Whoa."

"Indeed."

She spoke with an incredulous scoff under the surface. "Sorry...I don't know much about these things, but that seems like a big number."

"I can assure you that it is," Spock said with affected mildness.

"Like bad enough that it could reflect badly on you."

"It is not that it could. It is that it will, particularly in consideration of the fact that I will likely approve every transfer. I believe that the ship is still safe with James Kirk on board, now that we know to be exceptionally vigilant. But if others do not agree, that is their right."

Chapel's teeth were working at her lip; Spock was reminded of her old shyness. After a moment she said, "I wanted to tell you that I'm withdrawing mine."

His eyes worked over her in puzzlement.

"My transfer request." She shrugged. "Consider it a vote of confidence."

After a moment of silence, Spock reached for the orange he'd left for himself and began systematically to peel it.

She tossed a wedge of the fruit into her mouth, smiling and mumbling around it, "Stop your floundering, Captain, a thanks would be fine."

He nodded. "Thank you."

Later when they were both walking through the corridor to the turbolift, she said, "But seriously, how careful are we being? This isn't my area, but..."

"There is no need to be apologetic. The entire crew is entitled to know what kind of restrictions are being placed on Kirk. Those who don't already know will eventually be told that he is being held to a very strict allowance of behavior; if he violates any of his restrictions even once, he'll be handled as a severe security threat and the project will cease to have any priority."

"So let me get this straight," Chapel slowly said. "Basically the most important factor in the success of the rescue mission is whether or not that man can be on his best behavior?"

He did not miss, or disagree with, the apparent incredulity in her question. All he could do was nod in confirmation before she turned to catch a lift that was headed to the medical floor.

"Hey. Lunch tomorrow," she insisted just before the turbolift door sealed after her.

 

Eight days after his arrival on board, Kirk was late to one of the meetings that needed him in attendance to be even remotely productive. Spock cocked an irritated eyebrow which was met with a nervous smile from Chekov, who himself had worked the night shift on the bridge and looked rather rushed-in. Spock tapped the comm system and addressed, "Lieutenant Briani, why has Kirk not yet been escorted to the lab?"

An uncomfortable clearing of the throat came through from the brig comm system, followed by Briani's voice. "We're having a dilemma with Kirk, sir?"

"Kirk is aware of the consequences if he is refusing to leave his cell."

"To be fair, Captain, he isn't actually refusing to leave..."

"Then what is the problem?"

Several minutes later Spock was walking down to the brig room. He passed two members of security who seemed to be in assorted states of embarrassment and promptly walked over to face the one occupied cell.

"Mr. Kirk," he said. "Explain why you have removed your clothing."

He was indolently pacing back and forth with no hint of self-consciousness, entirely in the nude. Spock noticed and then discarded of the fact that he had a tattoo spread across one side of his ribcage, the shape too faint to be made out in the dark of the cell.

Kirk was giving him a whining expression. "That jumpsuit thing is fuckin' itchy."

"You will put it back on or you will not leave your cell today."

This was answered with a small complaining grunt; Spock didn't wait for a clearer confirmation.

"If I am forced to attend to you in such a manner again, I will not be pleased." On the way out of the brig he said to no one specifically, "Have him in the lab as soon as possible."

All of the unique factors considered, the collaboration was going well. Kirk's personality clashed with the professional atmosphere about as much as possible without it being particularly against any policies, but Spock was grateful for the cooperative efforts everyone made to put aside their discomfort with the situation.

Furthermore, Kirk was nothing less than ingenious in his ability to organize ways to make even a lower-ranked officer able to help with testing his calculations. He would have been illogically offended to have it pointed out to him, but he made an excellent, albeit unkind and condescending, instructor. The potential for the project to advance far too slowly no longer plagued Spock's mind; even if the volunteers working on the rescue mission had to momentarily pretend Kirk was the same as their former captain for the sake of personal principles, they were more capable of working well with him than they themselves may have guessed. Still, there was some apparent relief that the plans were to begin an early start on the pod vessel as soon as possible, that being a physical labor many of them could contribute to without Kirk's direct instruction.

It was nearing the time that Spock would have to report to the bridge when he gestured aside Yeoman Feda on his way out of the room. "At your earliest convenience, if you could acquire some reasonably comfortable civilian clothes for Mr. Kirk..."

Kirk quickly looked up and then cracked a sneer, but not before Spock caught the widening of his eyes that gave away a more innocent surprise.

Feda cleared his throat, looking between them. "Uh, parameters? Any particular color?"

"I was thinking light purple," Kirk pondered dramatically, leaning back in his chair. "Maybe a nice seersucker fabric—"

"Black will suffice," Spock interrupted, looking at Feda, who nodded and left. "James, you are done for the day."

The realization nudged at Spock, after Kirk was led back to the brig area, that he had stopped referring to the man by his last name. It was understandably more comfortable, as the former captain had never gone by the full form of his first name. Spock also reasoned that it held a less overly respectful air; given Kirk's consistently petulant behavior, it almost came naturally to address him as one could a minor.

That was the explanation he offered to anyone else who found it strange, and even Sulu quickly accepted the odd rapport as it sparked uncomfortably between James and the captain. Spock responded to it out of necessity, knowing that for whatever reason he had become Kirk's unofficial handler and that James was reportedly more obedient in his presence. In one way or another, they were becoming used to each other.

Months passed.

 

It was partly at Sulu's subtle but fervent urging that Spock took a purely recreational shore leave on a small but flashy Federation base where the _Enterprise_ was docked for just under a day. He was persuaded by the fact that the "club" was gathering for a party of sorts in a bar where he was told his presence would be symbolically appreciated, though once he was among the drinking and swinging hips in the dim light, he hardly understood how there could be any necessity for his company.

Chapel was there and seemed grateful for his conversation once she tiredly took a seat at the tables. He had found himself a section of the bar that was isolated enough for studying, and at first she only sat nursing a cocktail while smirking at the fact that he was going over some messages about an upcoming away mission. Later on the rumbling bass over the speaker was changed to a quieter variety of what Spock recognized non-specifically as some old Terran music.

"You never told me about visiting Uhura," Chapel remarked after a while.

He looked up at her. "That was quite some time ago."

"Yeah, but it all got swept up under this stuff with Kirk after that." She read his hesitation, though, and asked, "Is there anything to tell? What was she like?"

He tilted his head fractionally. "I don't believe she is going to be rehabilitated in any way. Her attitude suggests that she is resistant to truly joining our world, but not because she is afraid of it. She seems altogether apathetic about whatever society surrounds her."

"That had to be hard," she eventually muttered. "Talking to her."

Spock did not bother to confirm it. After a moment of consideration he replied, "I found myself interchangeably hoping that she would do or say something recognizable, and then dreading that she actually would."

Chapel only frowned in understanding.

Chekov was swaying wistfully in his seat across the room, a couple people chuckling loudly at his drunkenness as he allowed Sulu to pull him out of his seat and do a campy ballroom dance. There was sniggering when they accidentally knocked over a glass. Chapel was smirking slightly when Spock looked back from them to her.

Later he would not remember what possessed him to say yes. Christine stood and took him lightly by the arm. They danced to a slower song that instantaneously had the bar hushed to a calmer tone.

Reminding him of her clinical manners, she took care to position herself against him chastely enough, avoiding contact with his hands. Possibly she did not want the action to be mistaken for any sort of flirtation, but he knew it wasn't, especially not when they began to talk.

"I have never understood the logic of this form of dance."

"It's not really a 'form of dance,' Captain."

"Dance traditionally has some more artful purpose, but when it is improvised, or is simply moving in place as we are doing..."

She let out a small laugh. "You really can be a bore. Sometimes improvisation is the point."

Spock felt hesitant to point out, "I understand courtship is occasionally the purpose."

Her eyes moved up to meet his and then back down to the bobbing space between them. After a long moment, she spoke quietly. "When I was a teenager I volunteered at a center for the elderly...I think you mentioned it being in my records, actually. Anyway, one of the things they urged us to do when we spent time with the patients was to be sure to touch them every once in a while, even if it was just on the shoulder for little moments at a time...You don't really think about it, but when people get old or when they don't have many people in their lives, hardly anybody ever touches them. Most people who aren't so alone, they don't even think about what that must be like."

Spock felt an uncertainty that made him unable to look directly at her; he had avoidantly pulled her just enough closer so that his chin was resting at her forehead. Gently pedantic, he said after a minute, "It would certainly be different for those from cultures that rarely encourage physical contact."

"Of course," she said patiently. He thought he heard her take in the air to say something more, but then she was quiet.

They danced through the rest of the song in silence. Spock did not deny to himself at least that he was having one of many recent moments of weakness, but it was a quieter lack of emotional control; he felt simultaneously comforted and somehow achingly vacant. The tone of the music was limping its own dance across the floor in little summons of nostalgia. He found himself confirming that he was adrift, that he was desperate, that he was unable to recall the particular scent of Nyota's hair.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1 YEAR.

 

 

 

 

The performance evaluation was met with not only one but several admirals, as was customary when the reports received from the flagship were far less than ideal, and the _Enterprise_ 's had been for a while. Spock reported to a round echoing room where the officials scrutinized everything from the disciplinary records to the number of scheduled repairs related to the vessel; he stood and coolly defended the status of the crew in every way he supposed Jim might have done. No one specifically mentioned the controversial presence of James Kirk aboard the ship, but every lingering look of vague disapproval was pregnant with it, even if it was a quieter displeasure that Spock saw in the expression of Christopher Pike.

That particular admiral arranged to see Spock alone in his temporary quarters.

"So are you imagining it's a coincidence that I'm all the way out here?" Pike asked, currently pressing a drink to his temple as if to ebb away a headache.

"I presume you mean that you've taken it upon yourself to attempt some kind of partiality towards my authority over the _Enterprise_."

"Partiality. That sounds like something you wouldn't approve of."

"Generally, no."

"But in this case."

"In this case, no," Spock clarified tersely.

"You know I'm the one who pulled that little campaign to let you shuffle your crew around rather than send in replacements from the first month we were dealing with this mess. It's almost unheard-of for a first officer to permanently resume captaincy after the captain's death or in this type of situation."

"How many situations exactly like this one have you witnessed in Starfleet?"

"Don't be a smartass."

"Is there a regulation for such a displacement of a senior officer rather than definite death or disappearance?"

"It's the _same thing_ as a disappearance, Spock."

"When we handle disappearances it is a matter of more urgency because the members are likely to be dead," Spock said a little slowly. "We have little reason to believe these four individuals are dead."

Pike looked at him for a long time, with a face that was too tired to look defeated, and said what he seemed to have been trying to say all along. "Your record's not good, and I'll tell you why: You are without doubt the finest science officer I've ever seen or heard of and you make a damn good first, but you are not captain material, Spock. I knew that even when I made you acting captain; if only I'd been insane enough to put you over Kirk's shoulder from the get-go. Only the problem then was that you were so by-the-book you couldn't see around the next asteroid. Your problem now is that you're not going by any book at all but you think you still are."

Spock frowned at an ice cube that settled lower in the glass when Pike set it down. "I don't understand."

Pike let out a sigh, piecing it together in a different order in his head. "You've been doing what you're doing because you want to do it, Spock. Which isn't the end of the damn world, but if you start pretending otherwise, that's when you're playing with fire."

"As I have said repeatedly," Spock said, feeling an irritated jut in his body, "the rescue mission is not interfering with any assigned missions and has a considerable chance of success."

"You took a man very likely to be a killer away from trial so that you could get your friends back," Pike summarized, an unkind impatience setting into him. "And I will not be partly responsible for it ending in disaster, so you need to listen to me. I'm giving you the warning that was not made explicit in that meeting because a lot of people in my position would rather stand back and wait for you to fail: You are on thin ice. You just barely made it away from this evaluation still the commanding officer of the _Enterprise_. If you don't keep your records spotless for the next year...hell, you know what's gonna happen, but what really matters to you is that you will no longer have any say in what happens to James Kirk, and the project drowns without him, right?"

Spock almost said something, then only nodded.

"So I don't know what you need to do, but if you don't pay attention to virtually everything that's happening on that ship, you could lose it. And if you can't pursue this nutjob idea and be a captain at once, it's time to cut losses."

The comment cut right into an angry part of Spock. He felt a tight surge of simple betrayal, and it showed plainly enough that Pike cut him off.

"Don't you dare try to dissect the way that I've handled this, not you," he barked. "I have seen more than enough get buried to know why it is you can't give up on this. You think I've just accepted that they got killed? That I don't wonder where they are? I don't _know_ if I think this whole plan could work and I don't even want to know how dangerous it is, but I've done everything I can to keep you on that ship and it's because I did not pull George Kirk's son into Starfleet so that he could get sucked into some freak limbo, and if helping you can make me somehow convey to Winona how sorry I am about this whole fucked-up joke, it's what I'm gonna do."

Spock looked down for a moment, and he did not try to think of anything to say.

Pike finally sat back heavily, his expression almost apologetic. After a while he muttered, "Get back to your crew."

For over half of the shipmates their current stop was a brief leave, and many of them were wandering the temperate area with no care for procedural concerns. Spock was entertaining the idea of allowing himself to digest the events of the past two hours by taking a walk and observing the simulated sundown on the rec beach when he received the communication.

"Something happened," Sulu said. "It's not good."

Back on board, the ship felt skeletal with the number of lights that were automatically dimmed with not enough motion to indicate any necessity for them. As he approached the point of the ship where Sulu said he'd be, he heard an echo of not quite loud but strained dialogue between him and Chekov who was idly standing by. At Spock's approach Chekov took a cue to respectfully un-involve himself while Sulu turned to him; from the looks on their faces, Spock mentally braced himself for the news.

"Kirk got out of his cell somehow. Veralis and Donnelly found him messing around somewhere in engineering."

Spock's head managed some acrobatic stunt of rational balance. "Are you positive there isn't some mistake?"

"How could there be? All of his usual handlers are all on shore leave. Nobody else wants to touch him, and why would they let him out in the first place?"

"I assume there was some effort to see how he escaped?"

"Veralis already checked his cage. No sign of force or damage; he must have found some way to hack an exit code at some point when he was out working."

"James never has access to the computer system when—"

"I know. I know, but what else can we assume? He's not going to humor us with any kind of explanation, that's for sure."

Spock thought for a moment. "Why would he do this?"

"He knew there weren't many people on board. He was restless, decided to take a walk and thought he wouldn't get caught." Sulu spoke with the terseness of the furious; he didn't seem able to look Spock in the eye, as if it would be too blinding to bounce off of anyone else's reaction to this.

"Where is he now?"

"In there."

It took Spock a moment to realize that when Sulu pointed down the corridor he was indicating one of the smaller airlock compartments. This was a smart enough holding place; security would be awaiting orders on where to relocate Kirk, as there was no logic in escorting him back to a cell he had already managed to escape from. That clinical line of thinking was the last before he realized he had no idea what he was going to do next. In a couple seconds he was already marching up to the hatch, pressing the button to enter the room.

The very sight of Kirk abruptly made him feel like his bones were seething. "Leave us," he told the three officers who were standing by him, weeding the command down to a blunter "Out" when there was a slightly stunned hesitation.

Kirk's face was colored with a large bruise; it was no surprise that he had been resistant to security. However, nonsensically, he looked almost as angry as Sulu had looked. Spock heard the hatch seal behind them.

"Explain to me why you did this," Spock demanded.

A hesitation, Kirk's eyes darting away from Spock's face to the floor before meeting them with a pathetic fraction of their usual defiance. "I don't know."

Spock glared.

"I don't _know_ , alright. I got crazy, I was feeling restless." It sounded like some defeated plea for Spock to come to his own conclusions. "I didn't fuck up anything on the ship—"

"No, what you have—" Spock took in a breath, "—'fucked up' is our entire mission. Are you going to tell me you have not just done so deliberately? Was all of this what you intended from the beginning, only to delay your prison time?"

Kirk took a few steps back, his defeated sulk charging hotter.

Spock almost couldn't dare to ask, but it had to be asked, now that he was forced to coldly contemplate the facts. Kirk had been taking somewhat longer than he'd anticipated to be able to confidently state he could make the dimensional device operate on a bigger scale than the science department's testing fields; Spock had not monitored the progress closely enough, he feared. "Do you even believe that the execution of the project is possible?"

"Of course it's possible!" Kirk flung back as if he'd been profoundly offended. "You have got the wrong idea, man! This was just one fucking mistake."

"You know fully well you can only make one."

Kirk was just now registering the punch, and he was almost shrill when he exclaimed, "What, you're just dropping this!? You know you can't make this work without me, Spock, if you want to get them back—"

"I want it more than you can comprehend, but I also must look after the rest of this crew. They do not feel safe with you on this ship, which is why I offered you a place aboard only under strict conditions, two of which you have managed to violate in one evening. We are done, Kirk."

It took Spock completely by surprise: A growling gravity of some emotion came over Kirk. His tone was flat and controlled but there was a shade of desperation. He could not allow himself his own resigned silence. "What can I do?"

"No, James." Spock gave a shake of his head, would not look at him. "There is nothing."

"Fucking... _dammit_ , I barely even did anything." Kirk looked around as if he was looking to kick something, and he turned back to Spock crazed with anger. "And now you're making me out to be a goddamn liar, you pompous...half-nape piece of—"

"How preposterous of me," Spock said with unusually dauntless sarcasm. "To presume a murderer would be capable of lying."

"You don't even know for sure if I killed your crew member—!"

"You killed a number of people in the process of escaping from prison."

"Other prisoners; other killers. What's it to you? You think anybody on this ship would give a single fuck if you strangled me right here and walked out?! You gonna tell me your precious old captain never offed anybody because he had to make that call—?"

The interruption was snapped low: "You do not know what, or who, you are talking about."

"Well, you don't know who I am so you can kindly get fucked, Spock. I'm done letting you wipe the floor with me if you're not going to give me another chance."

James was truly and honestly asking for his trust. For the moment Spock understood the proverbial exaggeration about conversations being able to make people dizzy. "Even if I wanted to do that, I could not."

James perked up his eyes. "Is that really a hundred percent true?" he said, expression dubious. "...Come on, is it?"

"I would face losing the trust of my crew."

"It's not gonna be your crew much longer if the mission goes as planned."

"It will always be my crew, James. This is more than a matter of command politics."

"Assuming that I've been lying to you this whole time," he slowly said, "how could I have shown you the preliminary plans in the mind meld without you picking up that something was off?"

It was a clever question, but Spock gave it an expression of doubt. "If you had some knowledge about mind melds, you could have trained yourself to study the plans thoroughly enough that they did not register as some instrument of deception."

James rolled his eyes at that. Spock considered for a moment.

"If you consented to another meld..."

"No. No, I don't think so."

Spock lifted an eyebrow, his agitation rising again.

"I don't want you poking around in there, no way."

Spock examined James for a long moment. "Why?"

He refused to answer for a moment, and then all he had to say was, "I wouldn't have taken you for a pushy date."

In hindsight, Spock was surprised it had taken him this long to understand that James made tasteless jokes as a means of pushing untouchable matters aside. He squinted across the room at him for another few seconds, and then the recollection flooded in. "The one time I melded with you, there was something I nearly saw at the end of it that you were extremely uncomfortable with."

That was met with a bland pout. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"The feeling of it was deeply regretful."

James shrugged coldly. "You're making it up. You misinterpreted something. I don't know."

"If I am fabricating this, then what is your reason for being so apprehensive?"

"So it's a trade-off, is this what you're saying? I gotta do this for you to even try to go to bat for me? Because it's still not gonna happen."

"Be reasonable," he said. "What do you stand to lose from it? It would certainly be less than your freedom, James."

Kirk's eyes were darting about his surroundings again, and Spock realized with a small shock what he may have been thinking but not giving away his cards by replying: _As if I'd tell you this while I'm standing in an airlock_. A black murky curiosity was now surging through Spock; somehow this was no longer just about what had happened that evening.

Kirk was gathering a couple wits together, perhaps realizing the logic of Spock's question. He finally delivered an icy smirk. "You know what? If you're so convinced this thing is skulking around the corners of my head, let's see what you got. If you find it, you can have it." He tapped at his temple with one finger.

Spock shook his head, more in disbelief than refusal. He insisted, "You know what it is. You could simply tell me."

But Kirk shook his head back at him and repeated, "If you find it, you can have it."

Spock only wasted time hesitating for a couple seconds, but the moment when he stepped forward hitched up the air as if some threat had just been made, Kirk's bravado dissolving as he appeared to want to step back before clenching his fists at his sides. In the end he merely propped his hand to the wall he was close to. As abruptly as a punch or a kiss or an embrace, Spock stopped in front of him and placed his fingers at his temple.

 

Spock was sitting against the back wall of the transporter pad and he was alone.

He remembered well over a year ago when he had felt the first taste of his emotions spinning wildly out of control, when he'd walked with the tingling fade of his rage to this room to simply stare at the circle guides on the transporter floor, willing them to somehow belatedly produce his mother from some imagined ether.

Nyota had once translated a proverb for him: "To recover from grief is to make the world vow to you that it will never wound you in that way again. It will break its promise. You will believe the promise again."

For the moment he was grateful that there were so little people on the ship, as he wasn't sure how he might feel if someone caught him in such an apparently melancholy state as dwelling in the transporter room. There were already a couple members of security who would be grimly curious about what had just transpired, but none of them had asked.

After Spock had found that guarded thing, he'd cut himself clean out of Kirk's mind like pulling a hand from something white-hot. It had taken a staggering level of effort to do nothing more than throw him into the wall by a grasp at his shirt collar, perhaps shoving him out of his space in order to avoid his shaking temper getting the best of him. Spock had abruptly left, only curtly explaining that Kirk would not be dropped from their custody at this point in time because he was not satisfied with the probable amount of effective security on the closest fleet base.

He'd intended to go to his quarters and meditate for the rest of the evening. Instead he had found himself here.

The door slid open; Spock was surprised but somewhat relieved that it was Chapel. Her hair was done up in a more complicated way than usual, but the rest of her was in sweats.

With anyone else, Spock might have immediately assumed some formality in order to distance himself from his present state, but all he could manage was, "I thought you had taken leave."

"I just caught the last shuttle. I got stood up by this guy and I was in a bad mood, so I was only going to head straight to bed, but..." She gave an overwhelmed expression with her hands, indicating she'd heard a few things. "I'm thinking your night was a lot worse than mine."

His eyes looked forward tiredly. After a second she walked over to the pad and up the steps, taking a seat just next to him.

"I have just found out something about him," Spock angled hesitantly. "If I had known it from the start, I would not have let him on this ship."

"The problem isn't that he escaped his cell?"

"That is the problem for the rest of the crew. What I have just learned is the problem for me."

She considered for a moment. "Is it anything he's done to us?"

"No. This was not committed in our universe."

"Well, you need to let it go then." He must have looked rather surprised by that. She said, "I'm not telling you to say it doesn't matter, no. But if we were willing to let him roam free as long as it wasn't in our world, we chose to exile him, not control him or punish him. And you've got to accept that how good or bad he is has nothing to do with us because it isn't your responsibility...And that you can't exactly begrudge or forgive him because none of it is yours to forgive."

Spock looked over slowly, his eyes searching hers. "What has led you to believe that I would want to give him any kind of pardon?..."

She shrugged, unwavering in her point. "You wouldn't be so ticked off right now if you hadn't let yourself believe that there was some kind of hope for him. And I get it, I really do. He's just enough like Jim for it to be like walking on glass just to look at him; I wasn't even close to the captain and I hate it. But...I don't know if you want to hear this from me right now."

"I welcome your honesty."

She let out a sigh of hesitation first. "I think somebody needs to tell you that your authority will be _seriously_ damaged if the reason we're leaving this base with Kirk is because you're thinking about letting him stay."

"I am not."

"Just listen. If you actually let this slide, the majority of the crew will be confused, or they'll be annoyed, because they don't know you well at all. But the rest of them...the ones who know how much you probably miss Jim? They're going to think that you've been taken in. That he's somehow charmed you into believing he's not that bad, that he's hitting all your weaknesses and he's got you eating out of his hand."

It was a brief moment before he spoke a bit heavily. "You are informing me that there are people among this crew who believe that I am friends with James."

She looked away with a slight grimace. Now that it was directly expressed, Spock felt that he'd overlooked what was obviously too enshrouded from the majority of the crew to not be heavily speculated upon: The hours that Kirk spent with Spock, occasionally alone as they'd been contributing a lot of work to the pod vessel late into the night for lack of anything more useful to do, could be mistaken as almost companionable.

"In the future when you are aware of this kind of problem, I would appreciate if you would tell me sooner, even if it is not strictly your duty to do so." She had her mouth hanging slightly open in an unworded uncomfortable protest. As if reading her mind, he said, "It would not be an imposition. I consider you a valuable friend."

Her eyes met his in a snap, then looked away, as she struggled to reply.

"In fact," he realized, "at present, you are in some ways my only friend."

She sighed and after a second her face seemed to battle between a frown and a sad smile. "Same with me, actually."

He blinked in consideration. "I find that difficult to believe."

"I almost tried to tell you before when I put in for the transfer...I wasn't trying to meet anybody for the longest time on this ship. The main reason I enlisted for space travel was because I had figured that my relationship was doomed to fail and I thought that putting several planets between us would make for something prettier to blame it on than the fact I barely recognized who he was anymore..." She shook her head slowly. "Then one day I get the message that Roger's dead and it's like the entire damn solar system out the window is the carpet getting yanked out from under me. But then, Uhura...that aloof Uhura who goes by her last name even with some of her friends..." She paused to laugh. "She told me to come by if I needed a shoulder, and that was that. But now that she's gone..."

The pause cracked in the air.

"I've never been good at picking up on what makes me happy. Not only did I barely register that she was my best friend, but I guess I always took for granted that if something like this happened I'd show up at Leonard's office and get us both drunk until he could think of something helpful enough to say. But he's not here either."

Her voice was laced with the bitter redundancy of that last statement, which he blandly parodied with, "I had not noticed his absence, though I did wonder how the performance of the medical crew had so abruptly improved."

Christine laughed, in one little bright note. And then she started to cry.

For a matter of seconds she attempted to hide it and Spock made no motions. But then he lifted his arm in a subtle invitation, and she tilted in to rest her head into the crook of his shoulder, her legs drawing up so that she looked smaller; he was reminded of what he had observed before in the simple language of consolation among human children. She was mumbling, "I felt like we were so close, you know...that we'd actually get them back. I don't know if we could have done it, but dammit..."

Finally Spock soldiered himself into an attempt at consolation. "The loss of something is not directly a punishment for failing to realize its value."

"Not really," she muttered. "But it can sure as hell feel like it."

An announcement came over the general comm, somebody in engineering requesting an ensign. The ship still felt cloudy and vacant.

"Can I ask you something?" Christine said.

"If you wish."

"What was the actual status of your relationship?" Her voice had dropped, as if they were in the mess hall talking about something delicate rather than alone. "You know, you and Nyota. I think to some people it was obvious, but I remember getting the impression it was this on-again-off-again thing. Like, one or both of you would cut it off because it was a bad idea, but then some intense high-risk mission would come along and you'd just forget about all that."

For a long moment it may have seemed like he was never going to answer, as deeply thoughtful as he was. He finally said, "It was never what you might call official, at least not for any long period. Yet it never seemed to be over. We knew and trusted that we cared deeply for one another. That was what could be said for our relationship and in many ways it was enough. Though naturally I was raised to be more accustomed to very formal parameters in courtship and I was never fully comfortable with the uncertainty of it."

He paused to simply remember it, remember her. Christine was breathing next to him more peacefully now.

"I suppose that was the reason I asked her to marry me."

Christine sat up. "...When?"

"It was six days before the away mission. She had not yet given me her answer."

"...Oh my god." She seemed to school her mouth against hanging open before simply putting her hand over it for a second. "Spock. Oh my god."

"It was an unfitting way I had chosen to express something it had been fitting to confess, and it was not the best time, but I cannot say I regret having asked now."

Another moment passed as she shook her head. Eventually Christine asked in a careful way, "You still feel the same way? After all this time?"

He slowly, simply said, "I know and trust that we care deeply for one another. And, that is all that can be said."

She frowned back at him for a moment, and then with something resigned in her, she put her head back down to his shoulder in more of a loose lean this time.

"Do you believe what some of the crew believe?" he asked her after a couple minutes. "About myself and James?"

"I've told you what I'm sure about; that you want him to change. I never thought it was more than that, but at the same time...I guess I do worry."

He couldn't have articulated why he wanted her to know this. "If I truly wanted to be able to forgive him, I have reason to believe I could."

"Why?"

"...Because James was regretful of what he did," Spock said. "More precisely: He was ashamed."

 

The fleeting sense of serenity between crises was interrupted the next day when Sulu marched into Spock's cabin with a stiff agitation and no kind of greeting, carrying his compact PADD which he slid in a carelessly blunt way onto Spock's desk.

"Have you seen this?" he demanded. Spock only reached for the PADD and Sulu took his lack of already knowing what he could be referring to as a no. "It's Chekov's witness report of the incident with Kirk. I've already asked him to meet us here if that's alright with you."

Sulu must have requested an early start on the reports, something Spock would have done if he was more neutrally disposed to the subject. He barely had time to look into his personal files for his own copies before his cabin door slid open to reveal a reluctant Pavel Chekov whom Sulu ushered in with a mildly impatient gesture.

"What the hell, Pavel?"

"I know, sir." Chekov, who usually only called Sulu "sir" in private under a friendly sort of sarcasm, said it in a gruff apologetic way now.

"You didn't think to say anything about this last night?"

Chekov blinked in a look of earnest confusion that faded to something nervous or chagrined. "Uh, well, you would know that policy prohibits any interpersonal discussion of any incidents like this until the individual reports have been reviewed by the highest officers on board, if not a higher admiralty."

Apparently Sulu had at least half forgotten this fact. He gave a blank sigh and then said, "We're gonna have to consider this the review. It's up to the captain, but I'm definitely not eager to let this information leave the ship."

"Ensign Chekov, I have yet to view any of the reports," Spock evenly interjected. "I need a comprehensive summary of the events you witnessed."

For a moment Chekov could only look about to splutter into a story that had no graceful beginning; Spock realized the ensign was not sure he would be believed.

In what seemed a gesture of impatient mercy, Sulu declared, "It would seem, from what Chekov witnessed, that Veralis, Manning, and Wade dragged or lured Kirk out of his cell so that they could assault him."

Spock's command senses kicked up, making him demand of Chekov, "Is this true?"

"There may have been others involved, sir, but...what I saw was two of them holding him down..."

" _Jesus_ ," Sulu said. "Did anyone else see?"

"No. They don't know that I saw anything other than what looked like them attempting to apprehend him, which of course supported their story, so they weren't worried about me. That was the other reason I waited; I thought they deserved a chance to be honest..."

"You are as of late the most commendably professional officer among the bridge crew, Ensign," Spock said. "I will send another communication if I need any further embellishment on your report."

A little startled by the sudden dismissal, Chekov nodded and left just after exchanging a look with Sulu.

Once they were alone, Spock let a moment drag past without saying anything to his first officer, who was stuck in a position of crossed arms with his mind traveling through some angered daydream.

"Hikaru."

The use of Sulu's first name seemed to surprise him into more of a tired calmness. He came a few steps forward, untangling his arms in a helpless gesture. "What the hell is happening to this crew?"

"...I am aware it's agitating to answer rhetorical questions, but I am compelled to answer nevertheless. Sit down." He slid forward a pitcher of water and got out a glass for Sulu, who accepted it with a twitch of his mouth. "I owe it to the best crew I am ever likely to work with to no longer package these facts in euphemisms, if it could be said I ever thought I had the need to. Approximately a year ago we lost a crewmember to an ambiguous murder committed by one of a group of prisoners who escaped; months later, I invited one of those people, who I knew fully well was a dangerous man, onto this ship for the purpose of helping me construct a near-miracle which I hoped to attain out of some amount of a sense of duty but mostly out of sheer emotional necessity."

Across the desk Sulu was sighing.

"As an amalgamation of general attitude, it can be said that this vessel currently has no captain, or at least that the captain could not be me. What is happening is that this crew no longer trusts me."

"You don't know that." Sulu shook his head. "You don't know that. Not everybody feels like that."

"I do hope, but doubt, that your assumption is right." Spock stood. "We may further discuss this at a later time. Computer, locate Lieutenant Veralis."

All three of the officers reported to have been involved were known to spend much of their recreation hours together, which conveniently put them all just outside the gymnasium at that time. The area was mostly empty but for them when Spock came steadily marching up and demanded they stand at attention. All three were wide-eyed in surprise at the sudden command presence, but stiffened up obediently.

"I have been told that the three of you were involved in a deliberate assault on one of our ship's prisoners. I have this on a neutral and reliable perspective so I will charitably advise you to be thoroughly truthful."

The cut-down expressions confirmed everything, Manning's the only face that looked a little paled. The other two seemed most likely the instigators: too angry to be remorseful.

"A confirmation will suffice," he prompted.

A response finally came from Wade: "That bastard killed Lillie Freeman. Thanks to you he was never tried for it, but we all know he did it. You put him on this ship and you expect—"

"I expect my crew to prove themselves a better example of a just civilization than he is, which all of you have failed to do." He took a moment to glance evenly at all three. "I need no enlightenment of what that man is capable of doing. What I need to know is whether he was responsible for his own removal from the brig."

"I programmed the security system to unlock, sir," Manning admitted. It seemed to take her great effort to elaborate to the next part, and then she said a little wryly, "As far as I could tell Kirk was only going to go get something from the replicator when he realized the door was open. Maybe it's been a while since he had a good beer."

With a pissed-off squint, Veralis said, "He was not going to—"

"Enough," Spock said. "According to the witness, Lieutenant, you were the main assailant. Can you admit it would be fair to hold you mostly accountable for these actions?"

With a sigh Wade admitted easily enough, "It was both of us. You should go easy on Manning; she wasn't into the idea."

"I'll have her opinion on the events. You and Lieutenant Veralis are currently on suspension pending court martial. I presume you can escort yourselves to the brig." As they gritted their teeth and began to walk stiffly off, he added, "Send my regards to Kirk."

Once it was the two of them, Manning swallowed and put on even more of an air of regret, as it she'd been obscuring it for the presence of her friends. After a hesitation she managed to protest, "Veralis and Freeman were very close."

He gave that a neutral nod.

"Jeremy got some bad news that day, everyone was in a rough mood, and when they got to thinking about how empty the ship was..." She shook her head at herself. "They suddenly realized what they might get away with, since nobody would believe his account of anything. And I didn't really have time to stop them...Even if I'd said I would directly tell you about it, it wouldn't have stopped them. They think he killed Lillie; it's as simple as that. And I'm willing to add that they're probably right, sir."

"Were you aware that there was a witness of the events when it was more clear that Kirk was being attacked?"

She frowned. "No."

"For your failure to divulge any of this, I'm suspending you as well. You're confined to your quarters for the next 36 hours and will report to me for an unofficial hearing in two days."

"Thank you, sir." She nodded and left.

A moment later he'd found the nearest computer that was discretely located, and designated the communications to summon Christine. He explained the situation to her as briefly as possible. She, unlike Sulu, said what hadn't been said.

"But..." She stammered, "Kirk said nothing to you about this? He just sat there and let you assume—?"

"He is a very intelligent man," he reminded her. "He did not bother because he knew that I would not believe him. Now I must ask you something. You are not currently scheduled to work in medical bay if I am correct..."

"No. Why?"

"I have to request that someone from sick bay confirm that Kirk is not seriously injured."

It was asking a substantial amount. He knew she had no desire to be so personal with Kirk, but with how easily she replied, one might have hardly guessed. She said, "I can do that, yeah."

"Thank you, Christine."

After Spock ended the transmission, he contemplated the implications of his actions and found himself troubled by them, and furthermore troubled that he did not seem quite troubled enough. Even in his moments of being the most accepting of his typically human traits he had never considered his ability for denial a desirable one, but at the moment he was far from denying the subtext of the exchange. If Kirk's injuries turned out to be more serious than he had presumed, the first medical officer who became aware of it would be technically required to report his delayed access to care as an inhumane negligence. Spock would not ask Christine to break the rules for him, and yet in a way he just had done so by specifically asking her to do the examination.

Many would consider bending the rules in this situation to be somehow subjectively fair, Spock knew, but he did not believe it was. Even if Spock estimated that the worst injury Kirk could have sustained was a bone fracture and his life hadn't been put at risk by the neglect, the fact that it had not even occurred to Spock that the cause of his wounds was anything other than his initial assumption spoke volumes about the depth of his recent weakness of mind. Surely there were other examples of ways in which he had become too lenient and too distracted, even forgetful.

His calculations of time had become even more emotional. He seemed to have little care for anything but how much had passed since the four had disappeared, and for the vague number of the time until they just might be recovered. One of the most elementary exercises in recognizing and suppressing emotion that was taught to young Vulcans was that time must never seem to move faster or slower. Speed of time suggests light emotions, slowness suggests dark; the path of logic is marked by a steady ever-constant stream.

He realized in a sudden quiet consternation that even if he had anyone from the past at his disposal, be it Nyota or Jim or his mother, and even if he spoke to Christine or attempted a more personal rapport with Sulu, he had no ideal source of advice for his current dilemma. It was simple enough to encourage a Vulcan to embrace his emotions, but to advise on or even understand the tension and delirium this produced was impossible because so few Vulcans ever did. It was an admittedly painful epiphany, that Spock may have behaved within the past many months in a way that might make a person who had encouraged his passions to ruefully realize the precariousness of them. Jim had been one of these people, and Spock had no way of knowing if he was still a good enough officer or a good enough man to be his second-in-command, much less currently in possession of the captain's chair.

It was when the _Enterprise_ 's next instructions from Starfleet arrived that the consoling possibility occurred to him: If he could not seek the advice he needed from anyone from the past or the present, perhaps he could in someone from the future.

 

Spock observed not for the first time that the brig was truly one of the darkest areas on the ship; there was sunlight outside when the _Enterprise_ docked, but one would never know the difference. It may have only been a confirmed assumption that Kirk looked exceptionally restless when the cell door slid open for Spock's entrance; he was shrugged back against the glum corner and busy with biting a thumbnail.

Something changed in him once Spock entered: a change which he was trying to hide but was nonetheless apparent. Kirk avoided his gaze in a way that for once reminded more of an embarrassed child than of a petulant one. He would have known as soon as he'd been relocated back to the brig cell that Spock knew what had really happened with the security team, but that had not made Spock expect this kind of behavior from him at their next meeting.

Finally Kirk looked up at him, eyes calm.

"You will accompany me planetside," Spock said.

This was clearly not what he'd expected to hear; his mouth quirked in confusion and Spock could see a dry comment forming fast.

"You will be chaperoned by a trustworthy member of security, and by myself when I am disposed."

He turned to prepare for his own departure without bothering to tell Kirk where it was they were stopped. James, in all the time of being escorted to the transporter room and waiting for Spock and then yawning at the ensign who had to pause to align his chronometer to the planet's time, apparently did not ask. He didn't seem in the mood to anticipate much of anything, but the lack of inquisitiveness from the usually mouthy inmate was oddly jarring.

Something grumbled in annoyance through Kirk's eyes once they had beamed down and walked far enough for him to realize they were among one of the new Vulcan colonies.

The two of them had actually discussed the future of the surviving Vulcan culture on one occasion while engaged in half-hearted but curious conversation late at night in the hangar bay. Spock had explained the divide that had shown its face among the Vulcan survivors almost the instant the people had begun their efforts to rebuild. A number of Vulcans, believing they needed time during their grief to focus on their spiritual priorities, had rejected the prompt utilitarian efforts of the other percentage to immediately encourage repopulation, the latter so insistent in this goal that they wanted to have the newly widowed remarry as soon as possible. Slightly less than half of the population, including most of the remaining mind healers in existence and also Spock's father, had remained on Terra for the time being; the rest were here on these dry plains that some might call the "back yard" of a small but resourceful and apparently charitable local colony.

Kirk had remarked that this seemed a cultural divide that could over time resemble as wide a gap as now existed between Romulan and Vulcan societies, and that that must have troubled Spock; at that point Spock had discontinued the conversation.

The official purpose of Kirk being allowed leave was that it had been recommended for his health; the security officers were obediently willing to simply let him sit outside and have the fresh air for a while. Spock left them to cross a small windy courtyard into the one tall and solid structure the colony had to call a conference building, checking that he was not too early.

There was only one Vulcan who had taken residence in this colony with whom Spock was acquainted, and Spock did not believe he was there in agreement with it, but rather as an innocent pretense that made him available to study its progression and perhaps solidify an identity in entirely new company.

"Captain Spock...I believe something in your appearance has changed," the older Vulcan said in greeting. They were paused in the middle of the welcome center, Spock holding his arms behind his back.

Spock was reminded of the man's affinity for artful statements: There should have been nothing notably different on the surface of him, but he knew what he'd meant. He said, "Yes."

The ambassador's modest suite within the premises had a generous window that looked out on the courtyard. A fireplace was crackling from across the room as Spock accepted a glass of water from his older counterpart.

"I will admit I have been troubled about the information that is circulating about what you intend to attempt," the ambassador said, and something in Spock bristled, perhaps unfairly, as he waited for him to keep speaking.

But the other seemed attuned to this response and fell into a quieter tact.

"Spock." The ambassador said it like it wasn't his own name anymore, like he didn't hear the word often enough to identify with it now. "You and I have not spoken since the accident, but I assure you that the news was devastating to me. I understand what you are feeling."

Spock felt as if he could predict the next part, that this was bitterly similar to his recent communications with his father, the attempts to promise he won't be this way forever, that grief must be traversed rather than undone. There was the never-ending implication that Spock had been unable to accept the more recent loss because it had been painful enough to see his mother ripped away. At most times he was able to deny this. And yet he could not so much as speak to his father without wondering if it had almost everything to do with her. He replied, "I respectfully doubt that you can completely understand."

The ambassador was stepping closer to demand, "Then would you tell me how it feels?"

It felt somehow preposterous for him to ask the words of him, and Spock almost wanted to say so. He looked over and didn't realize he was about to answer until he clumsily croaked, "Unfair...It feels unfair."

The older Vulcan just nodded.

"There are a great number of people who believe my actions are irrational. Those with an emotional perspective even think that I have taken this to an unacceptable level of obsession...I fear that if that were true I would not be able to stop. Perhaps I came here because I believe you are the best judge of my character." Spock concluded, "I would have your advice, ambassador, but not your pity. And certainly not your condolences, for I believe that the four are alive."

After a moment of contemplation the ambassador replied, "I find myself even at an old age not very accustomed to dispensing advice that is any more complicated than what is clearly in the receiver's best interests, but I will not attempt to persuade you out of something when I more than anyone should be able to tell when you are resolved. Your interests are no longer that of a Vulcan, no longer based on wisdom and survival alone. You have in a surprisingly short time come to push outside the boundaries of our particular logical nature, and it would seem a purely human piece of wisdom is all I can give you."

Spock looked down out the window; James Kirk was lounging on a stone bench by the spring outside, secluded and bored, but not without that look of his that was the look of a man attempting to reject his own deeper musings.

The ambassador said, "I would tell you simply to be sure not to do anything that Jim Kirk would not do. Only..."

"Only I have already broken that maxim?" Spock interrupted, his eyes not straying from the restless Kirk sitting outside, knowing the other was probably following his gaze.

"No."

Spock was surprised by that calmly certain word and turned his eyes directly back to the ambassador.

"No. I was about to say that you, being as young as you are, having as little time at your captain's side as you have had, are most likely only able to grasp a mere inkling of what he would have done, what he was capable of doing...if it were for somebody of great meaning to him."

Spock softened in a curious response to the words, to the way there was a remembering look in his counterpart's eyes.

His older self answered the unspoken question that must have been in his expression with only the slightest nod, his voice plain with devotion to its truth. "If it were for you."

After that Spock was left alone by the window as the older Vulcan set about making his tea in thoughtful silence.

He had not, even in his most eager acceptance of Jim Kirk as a closest friend and of his place aboard the _Enterprise_ , accepted the concept of destiny, or that he was in any way beholden to align his life to whatever his counterpart could tell him of his parallel past. As he looked out and examined the irregular mannerisms of the man who shared a face with his stranded friend, he felt once and only then an affinity with the double, for what James must have been told by the man who in this world only wanted to tell Jim to be Spock's friend but in another life gave him a cold warning. He wondered if they could share the sentiment that "fate" often seemed like a crueler word than any other.

Spock quietly finished the tea that had been handed to him and then thanked the ambassador for his counsel. It was morning for most of the crew members, but he had not slept for nearly two days. He decided to retire to the ship and to his quarters, and he hoped, after some sleep and a little more time, that his plans would be as ripe and ready as Jim's had usually been.


	4. Ulysses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After several years of stops and starts I am, for real this time, not-sure-how-slowly but surely in the final stretch of this fic. I previously said this was looking to end up about the same length as the first book, but I can say for sure it's running longer than that. I've made some small revisions on the previous parts for some stuff that's always bugged me (including a chapter title change), but for the most part this was only on the AO3 and FF versions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2 YEARS.

 

 

 

 

 

Megel III used to be a favorite shore leave spot of Jim's. It was one of those well-kept secrets of recreation areas, where the taverns were never too busy and the visitors were welcome; this was mostly because of the occasional rock storms that made it too dangerous to get a lot of traffic, but it was also one of the prettiest places imaginable, and hell if Starfleet members minded the risks.

Here, it hosts a yearly "quadrant's fair" where you can buy conceivably anything from under many different suns. The only thing he likes about it this time is that it's busy.

"Do you have that map yet?" he's saying into a comm as he tries to keep his hat from blowing off in a gasp of wind.

Scotty's voice comes back. "Got it, I think you...passed it actually, shoulda been off to the east of that fountain?"

Jim makes a blunt noise of annoyance. "I don't understand how I could just miss it. Wait, there's the _other_ fountain, with this, uh, pelican-looking thing..."

"Well, I forgot to download the map that describes the garden decorations, Jimmy."

"I don't need your excuses, Aramis," Jim says, reminding Scotty they should probably be using call signs. "And don't be funny." Last time Scotty got slap-happy on the comm was when they were both under the kind of nervous duress that made them a bad combination talking together, and that surly cargo handler that thought Jim was laughing at him for dropping a wine barrel almost tore his arm off.

"I'm very sorry. I'm sure that some day you're going to get arrested for your bad sense of humor and we'll all end up hanged."

Jim's wince would come off like a squint against the breeze."...Well that isn't fucking funny at all."

"Just obeying orders."

"Oh, hey, I think I found it now."

"Later, then."

Jim flips the comm unit shut.

Apparently Andorians are popular here, as it's ninety percent of what he sees, sparsely spaced out by the occasional Orion or Klingon. There are so many different sellers, and Jim has never been able to piece out what the process of elimination is. He can only wonder what kind of advertising must be done to win someone over when there are hundreds of servants to pick from in one place.

What always impresses Jim about the masses of people waiting to be sold is the way they so thoroughly withhold themselves from being responsive, or distinctive or emotional enough to stand out of a crowd; they never make any kind of eye contact, as if it is brutally important to make the colors of the horizon or the details on the paper lanterns hung around the squares seem more important than their desperation. Sometimes they talk to each other in what, even when Jim understands the language, never is about anything grave but feels laced with some kind of code.

It makes him remember back home when these were just foreign and unpredictable individuals, fascinating and with a touch of warning in their reputations; somehow this makes him understand that this consistent and casual dread has become their cultures instead. The fact that they are accustomed to it so much that no amount of suffering given to them could come as any surprise is a crystal-clear warning of what they are capable of. The only thing they tend to be unprepared for is somebody like Jim, and this makes the process of being decent quite a bit more complicated than being cruel.

He doesn't have much of a system at all, of course, besides going for them young when he can. He finds the seller in the least bustling area of the clearing, close to the edge of a large courtyard.

"Stand by for a lock," he comms up.

"Wilco."

Jim approaches a teenager whose expression goes to stone; but when he looks up he mutters in some derisive Andorian something to a neighbor that is obviously about him, and Jim—never wanting to make arbitrary judgments but unable to get along without them—thinks there's definitely something about this one.

This small time before the seller notices him is usually his only chance to be frank. He's considered many times just saying outright the reason he's there, but aside from the clenching feeling he has about any of the other ones overhearing, there is always a very real possibility they'll think it's some kind of trick. He really hates this part, the moment when he steps up to them, and he sees in their eyes the hunted instinct that's telling them they're about to be sold.

"Do you have any family here?" is what he asks. He can ask again in Andorian if the kid doesn't understand; he's made sure he knows how to ask this question in a multitude of languages. But this one understands. His eyes squint in indecision, in examination. He doesn't say anything.

There is nothing generous about the average somebody that would ask. Many owners are willing to ensure families are intact for the sake of "morale"; no one likes to deal with the saddest they come. Some of the slavers even charge more if you want to buy relatives, but in most cases they don't keep track.

And some of the servants, Jim has learned, don't give it up. Even if they have somebody there, they measure up and decide to take their sister or brother or child's chances with somebody else. Jim scans a few other faces close to the boy, seeking out any unusual reaction. Nothing makes him sure.

" _Sure you don't want to tell me_?" He speaks in Andorian this time, but somehow this only seems to make the boy more suspicious.

The seller isn't talkative. Jim goes over to initiate the trade, gives him a set of credit codes with his fingers crossed that he doesn't have one of the systems that detects counterfeit accounts, and then breathes in relief as he gets handed the small disposable transponder that corresponds to the harness attached to the purchase.

These harnesses are the reason it's difficult, except for in the rare times when they're financially equipped, to pick up more than one at a time at these markets: In order to be sure people can't just snatch a servant by the elbow and transport away, there are blocking devices on the harnesses that ensure they'll stay firmly grounded unless you have the right transponder to unlock it. That is, the best-case scenario is that the person stays grounded: The devices are effective enough to prevent theft but in the actual case of somebody attempting to pull away with somebody wearing one of them, it can be all kinds of dangerous for the servants if something goes wrong.

He just barely yanks on the lead attached to the harness, enough to get the kid's attention, when he returns to collect him. "Let's go."

They're at the edge of the long line of servants, most of whom watch them going only numbly. And then there's a girl: She flings out of the crowd toward the boy, face pinched in pain. Jim thinks he saw her standing behind the boy before as she throws her arms around him and he lets out some woeful urgent protest.

"Who is she?" Jim asks.

The girl talks right to him: "I'm his sister. We should have the same transponder code because we came in at the same time, we're not supposed to tell, but a lot of them are the same—"

" _Ehrin_ ," the boy wails, and then Jim picks up in Andorian, " _Easier to escape from traders than from him!..._ "

" _Hey_!" the seller is hollering. "Back in form!"

Jim tugs on the harness to start leading them farther away, letting the boy think he's not interested. He waits a few seconds to hope no human eyes are interested anymore, reaches his other arm behind his back and waves the girl forward, looking back to intently catch her eyes.

He can see the second when she's too afraid of him. Then the second when she isn't. She starts running, Jim curves his arm around the boy to make sure he isn't about to put up a fight and snatches the transponder off of his harness, uses it to deactivate the girl's and he sternly says, "Now" into his comm just as he's noticed, getting launched with angry shouts.

The boy is thrashing so hard in protest that they all begin a tripped topple to the pavement; they all fall onto the surface of the transporter pad.

"Christ, your arm," Jim is grunting as he untangles himself from the painful-sounding impact he made on top of the girl. "Bones!"

"On his way," Scotty says, nearing the pad to help.

Nyota's voice comes over the open comm. "Moving on our planned course at warp seven and not picking up any sign of pursuit. Scotty, get your ass back up here."

Bones enters the transporter room, tricorder at the ready.

"Nice timing, I think I broke her arm," Jim mumbles in grumpy hyperbole, and the doctor gives an incredulous shake of his head as he goes to look at the girl.

"What's your name, hon?" Bones asks. "Tell me he didn't really break it."

"...No." The girl is barely able to say it, gaping at him and then at Jim, chest swelling as if she's trying to suppress some reaction.

"You bruised it a bit. She'll be fine," Bones concludes in a moment to Jim, who's scooting a small distance away from the two kids.

"My name's Jim. Nobody's gonna hurt you," he says, noticing that she seems to be giving the medical device a nervous look, then decides to get on with the usual lines. "Welcome to the good ship _Ulysses_. You will not be told to do anything by anyone on board; if you are asked to do anything you will not be punished for refusing to do it. You are being transported to a colony where at least for a time you will be provided with food, clothing and shelter and until we get there you can ask for anything you need and we will do our best to provide it."

The boy is absolutely reeling.

"How come you were trying to leave your sister?" Jim quietly asks him.

"I thought there was still hope one of the rebels might buy her." His sister is moving in next to him, and he wraps her in an arm.

Jim exchanges a look with Bones and laughs ruefully. "And I don't look like a rebel?"

"I don't know," the boy says weakly, still stunned. The forced bravado that had been there when he saw Jim as an enemy has disappeared. "Maybe if you had looked more afraid..."

"More afraid next time," Bones advises blandly, giving a wink.

"I'm Addo," the boy says. "My sister is Ehrin."

Nyota appears, leaning into the frame after the door slides open and greeting the newcomers. " _Deleyah_. Is anyone hungry?"

"I'll take 'em," Bones offers.

"Oh, wait, that stuff you said you were running low on..." Jim pulls a handful of hyposprays out of his pocket. "Anceropro—?"

"Ancepropol?" Bones is already reaching to look at one of them, amazed and dubious. "Did you _pay_ for these?"

Jim turns away suppressing a grin.

"Seriously, man. You have got to quit it with the Robin Hood routine. When the hell did you learn to be such a pickpocket anyway?"

"Never underestimate the boredom of young genius, Bones."

With a roll of his eyes, Bones waves the Andorians along with him into the hall.

"Hey," Nyota says in teasing assertiveness, blocking him back into the room as he gets close to the door, "'young genius.'"

Jim smiles and leans and meets an eager kiss, Nyota tugging him down by his jacket. "Hey yourself," he mutters just as he gets her stepping backwards until her back collides into the nearest wall.

"Took you long enough."

He scoffs warmly into her ear, kissing down her jaw and lifting his hands up under her shirt. "Been waiting all day to jump me?"

"Oh, you know. Never underestimate boredom." She makes a small relieved note as he glides a leg hard between her thighs and the returned pressure makes his head melt, and it's too much for only a few minutes but neither of them are able to stop.

"Whatever. You know you're all turned on by 'the Robin Hood thing.'" He quotes Bones with a hammy drawl, the deeper tone humming at her throat as he grazes teeth and lips there.

"Oh my _God_." She chooses that moment to shove him off, her smile cringed in exasperation. She tries even harder than Bones does to get him to stop the side theft.

"Come on, you like it." Half-laughing as he handles her back around by the hipbones, and he kisses her just so, just enough.

"I don't. Jim, just...mmmfuckoff," she mumbles even as she's pulling him in again, like she can't stand him and can't stop kissing him. He's kissing at her ear when she says, "I love it. I love you. Shut up."

She is smiling in a kind of excited embarrassment when he looks and then he's grinning too but it's falling to something else as he pushes her up to the wall again.

He kisses her more feelingly, his motions against her body going stuttering with all the gravity after anxious separation. In the minute getting stretched to a hot fog he hears her helplessly say, "God, but I get worried every time. Feels like you're gone for days, every time..."

He never tells her it's going to be okay or that they're all fine, or that he loves her as if it's a substitute for either of those. He says the one little spark of her name, as if it's a secret, and it has to feel like enough.

 

Addo and Ehrin are administering the lovely protein stew of the week into their empty stomachs while Bones pays witness to the news program on the small broadcast screen over the kitchen stove, a distracted distaste already set into his shoulders.

His knuckles are absently stroking over Hosanna, a stray Maine Coon he took a grudging responsibility for very shortly before they left Earth. He acts annoyed with the animal most of the time, constantly berating her for getting up on his medical equipment or for other vaguer injustices when he's very stressed, but he's affectionate when he thinks no one is looking. Jim knocks him on the shoulder as he comes by, and he lets the cat go loose.

Jim pulls up a chair to sit on backwards with his arms hung over the back. Rubbing at one of his eyes, he says to the kids, "I'm sure you've got questions for me."

"Can my sister have another bowl?" Addo quietly asks.

"Hey, you can both have a dozen bowls. Please."

Andorians usually have a good sense for exaggeration, and Addo crooks up a hint of a smile. "Where are we going?"

"That's actually partly up to you. Ideally we would be headed to a couple stops first, but if you want to go straight to the safehouse colony we're headed to, we'll go. Anyone who's on the ship has input, so if we picked up somebody else, we'd also hear them out and possibly go to a third stop, but that's not very likely to happen where we're going next."

"But if we were willing to wait, you would be able to help somebody else."

"That's the idea. Oh, and you have a night at least to think this over. Any other questions?"

"Yes." The boy calmly asks, "Is that you?"

Jim follows the kid's gaze to the screen where he now realizes the anchor is rambling off about him at fine-print speed, reminding the world that he is wanted alive and this is what the bastard looks like, tune in for Ludo Nicolitus in five and all hail the Terran Empire.

Jim turns back. "That's somebody else's ID picture, if you want the pedantics. But that is my name and they want me on a spike."

"And your tag's gone up," Bones points out somberly.

"Yeah?"

"Seven million."

"Only that much?" Jim replies with a tone of disappointment.

Bones grumbles something at that, keeping it under his breath. The _LUDO!_ logo is coming on screen with the usual rollicking music of the opening; he glares at the screen as he presses the button to mute the sound.

Jim continues some work evaluating whether he thinks they should drop into the middle of the gang activity on Daleron to see if they could plant some informant contacts. There are a handful of races that Starfleet is only regularly presiding over for the sake of doing trading with them, but with a planet that sells a lot of weaponry it would be valuable to keep an eye on where and when the battle fodder is being moved.

Every stop they consider making involves at least a day of risk assessment. First they check if there are any kind of shields around that disable beaming functions; if they're even variably present, it's out of the question, which usually makes bringing assistance to domestic rather than economic areas impossible. If there aren't any shields, there's usually a reason why. The level of other types of security has to be looked up and evaluated, probed for any patterns of neglect or poorly protected areas. Risk factors are considered differently if there are already rescued passengers on board. When possible, those individuals are asked for their input on the degree of risk they feel it's acceptable to take and may even be involved in the planning.

The hardest figure to calculate is the chance that they'll be recognized. This is the factor that sends them usually searching for the small colonies that aren't densely populated, mostly exist for recreational or trading use and don't have many actual humans that reside there. Wherever they can find the people who practically live in space and don't make many visits to Earth, the farther they get away from the people who have heard much of anything about Kirk's traitorous band of ex-Imperial thieves.

Nine times out of then, they don't do it.

Only lately they've been suddenly aware of a new problem, which they know hardly enough about to even figure into their logic.

"You're not worried about the bounty hunters?" Bones mutters with put-upon dread, aware that this point is redundant to Jim.

Jim looks over. Scotty is emerging from his nap at the same time Nyota slides into the chair next to Jim and helps herself to a spoonful of his dinner. He gives Bones a sigh. "Possibly. It depends."

"On what?" he asks dubiously.

"I'm just reminding you we don't know jackshit about them. You could say that about any planet at this point," he says. "We've only known about this organization for a couple months. These people could be scattered anywhere, it's not like anyone who's looking for us doesn't know _we_ could be just about anywhere. Thankfully we're not the only people out there that are worth anything."

"I heard the old commander's worth a fortune," Scotty puts in, shrugging. None of them ever refer to that Spock by name. "He's almost worth more than any of us and he didn't even do anything except disappear."

"I'm sure he's doing something," Bones says. "I don't really like to think about it, if it's true that he instigated that ministry bombing."

"The one by the Klingons?" Nyota asks. "They're saying he was involved in that?"

"I think he was," Jim says with a limp shrug.

Scotty cocks his brow at him.

"If he's really out there satisfying his curiosity by starting a resistance, and I gotta admit I don't see any other reason he would have given up having power in Starfleet, especially being a Vulcan..." Jim sighs. "He'll be trying to build numbers, and there are a lot of people who would need something as big as a demonstration of terrorism to believe his side is really capable of anything."

"I hate to say it," Nyota says after considering that for a moment, "but I have a feeling he's a little bit safer than we are."

She and Jim lock on each other with rueful expressions. "I guess he would always do the safer thing," he says. "And that's why his bounty is so huge, after all."

"There was something else, last night," Scotty says with his crooked cheeriness, gesturing with the spoon he just picked up. "In the news release there was an investigator finally confirming it really could have been James Kirk who dropped in on his own cabin house just to burn the place down."

"Really?" Jim's mouth crawls into a smirk. He's been waiting a very long time for someone to put that on the news; the house was a hideout Kirk had acquired under a false name during his fugitive days, and there was initial conjecture that some kids who may or may not have been the arsonists had just put the name on the mailbox to rile things up. "I wonder how they figured out it was his."

"Maybe Pap fessed up," Bones says.

"Or Winona knew about it," Jim says, something in his voice dropping. He shifts up suddenly, looking at the chronometer and then the viewscreen. "How many minutes left on Ludo? Shit—"

Four faces turn attentively as he takes the sound off mute, then puts out a hand, _Wait for it_ , while Ludo Nicolitus is wrapping up.

Ludo is a famous personality who has a cloying shtick of boyish appearance despite the long face and the darkly sophisticated eyes. On every episode he wears the same black and jolly-red jacket that looks militaristic but also like the type of outfit that a four-story family would force onto their little boy for Christmas dinner or Sunday croquet; this seems to be the notion of the gimmick, as it looks to be one or two sizes too small for him and he takes to frequently pulling at the collar like it's giving him a neck rash. He swamps the week's news in mispronunciations and malapropisms and nervously adjusts the plastic school room chronometer on the corner of his desk instead of looking behind the camera for the time. The overall effect is supposed to be deliciously unpredictable, with the occasional serious gravity of his expression somehow challenging whatever looks into them, betraying some harder madness underneath the candy store personality. It is generally known that he once bribed his way out of a few years in prison.

"Pop back on tomorrow for the Edition, when we'll have two _special_ guests who were recently apprehended by a Justin Boone. We'll talk to Boone for a bit and then get to the good part." Ludo spreads his hands and claps them back together like an enthusiastic hostess. "And for the tipline this week, we have—!"

He cues into a canned sound effect: the disappointed _wah-wah_ lilt.

"Nothing, lovelies, no sweets, no treats. Sorry, folks, but Cathal Davy and his Myriad Band have got plenty of beats; I'll leave you tonight with this little rockabilly rendition of—"

After muting it again, Jim turns to rest his elbows heavily on the table. "No catch. I don't think it's gonna happen."

A few weeks back they asked a couple Terran allies to try to plant some rumors about their whereabouts based on a falsified sighting close to a Reman mining station. Scotty says, "Just because it's not on _Ludo_ doesn't mean it's not running about. The hunters don't seem to rely on him."

"Yeah. Anyway," Nyota says in a sigh, "hearing nothing is better than them having a tip on where we've actually been. With any luck no one from today will suspect you were anybody important."

"I think the hair color's actually helping," Bones commented, sipping something from a mug. "Who would have thought."

 

Much later, after Ehrin and Addo have been set up in the biggest bed where Jim and Nyota usually sleep, the two of them are settling onto the camp mattress that has a few sheets drawn around it and occasionally is employed as a general medical bed. Jim is fixing a few of the stray curtain rings while they play at one of their usual topics: Nyota has taken to rereading a few memorable books with the grim curiosity of seeing how the texts are different in this universe, but sometimes she needs a refresher of how they ended before.

"I cannot believe that is one of your favorite books," Jim is saying emphatically.

"You don't like it?"

"Egh. I like how he handles the political themes. _Ignorance_ was better, though barely anyone knows that one anymore—he's _all_ about the Homeric references there. Anyway, I just had no patience for the main character in this one."

She leans up to rest her elbows on her knees, grinning. "Are you kidding?"

He cocks an eyebrow, knowing what's coming and playfully protesting, "Don't."

"The incorrigible philanderer with the desire to _explore_ every woman he meets. You couldn't relate at all."

"He was an incorrigible _adulterer_. And then that damn ending. When they have to move out to some island just so that he'll stop sleeping around..."

"I think it's just out in the country."

"Right, whatever. And like, it's supposed to be this devoted gesture of his love for her that he has to cut himself off of the company of other women entirely...How does this version end?"

"He sleeps with a milkmaid," she says plainly. "She has a jealous rage and tries to poison him."

Jim pauses to give her a slightly appalled look. "And she doesn't succeed?"

"No. The dog gets to the food."

Jim lets out a sigh. "...The _dog_."

"It's not that I would find it so understandable from a real person...but you have to remember the womanizing is sort of caricatured. It's all a philosophical device; you can't take it too literally." Her eyes follow him for a moment. "And okay, I do think it means _something_ that he was willing to go away with her. That he's willing to make his world so much smaller in order to give her everything she wants."

A quiet moment passes like Jim has nothing to say to that, and then there's something tired but firm in his expression after he slides the sheets closed behind him and is dipping into bed. "The world should not have to be small for anybody," he says with his own finality, and lays over her body, kissing her neck.

The ship is dim and humming around them, silent except for the shifts of fabric and their sounds rising as they kiss a slow goodnight, sighs ebbing into gasps. She hugs his hips hard between her legs and grows restless under the pressure of him, groans.

"I want you," she complains against his mouth.

He plants her a firm and then soft kiss, letting out a half-chuckle. "Don't sign me up for the next justice movement."

Her head falls back from his a little, the quiet starting to curl up as they can feel each other smirking.

"Not a condom to be had in the revolution," he states gruffly, and she's sniggering low until his head falls into her neck and they're both losing the mood.

It's a fact; the last time Nyota saw a contraceptive hypo for humans they were still on Terra, and ever since her last expiration it's proven impossible to find any other form of that security, where the humans are mostly stocked for more urgent medical attention. They have latex guards at the colony, but she wouldn't feel right even buying one from there. The problem occurred on Leonard's radar enough for him to have asked once with half-drunk concern what they were "doing about it," so that he was told tersely that they both knew better, and never brought it up again. Over time they have risen to the problem in any way that comes up in the spur of the moment when there is even the right amount of time and energy for it to matter.

By the time she rucks his shirt up to hold at his ribs and then down to grab low, Jim is no longer laughing. They're kissing again, blind and hard and smudging, Jim rocking down over her until he reaches for her wrist, pulls both of her hands down to her sides and presses against her, relishing her, mumbling, "You want it, mm?"

This time her annoyance with him has something husky to it. "Oh my god, Kirk, I'm not some back-scratcher for your tremendous ego," she teases, but her voice is low and thin.

"How much?" he's whispering into her mouth.

"So predictable," she stalls.

"Talk to me, huh?" He lets one of her wrists go to move his hand down along the dip of her hipbone, sliding into warmer skin until she feels all soft and sinking and his voice is a heady rumble of near-desperation. "Come on. Talk to me."

She slips and presses her hand back down below his waistband; they're both gasping and moving in tandem. "Want you," she relents in a thoughtless whine. "It's always good but God, I want you to have me, and have me till you know how to make me go crazy, I want to feel like you'll never have to leave me. Jim—"

He's making a noise, some small gasp of shock and he's mouthing along her neck and jaw, his breath heavy through the shape of a word that could be _honey_. They've gotten submerged in some unexpected and precarious emotion and the motions are tighter and heavier now, Jim kissing a rush down all over her skin and breathing a nervous sigh on her hip, and she can barely hear the reverent mutter that he loves her, he loves her, he'll make it good.

 

After they have lunch the next day she touches up his roots with the last of the dark brown hair dye, Jim scrunching up his nose as the sour smell fills the hall just outside of the lavatory.

"I'm beginning to forget what you look like blond," she says, smudging in a last couple drops with rushing fingers.

He gives her his best smirk.

"I wasn't saying I missed it," she says with a smile, and removes her plastic gloves. "Rinse up in five minutes. Use the stuff in the blue bottle when you wash your hair, for once."

Leonard walks by from the kitchen end of the hall and cocks an eyebrow. "You ready for the parade tonight?"

Nyota is stalled for a second before she remembers the Ludo announcement. "I forgot," she says with a frown.

Jim's hand tugs at one of her back jean pockets. "It's not like you have to watch."

She shakes her head absently. "But you know we all should."

Jim insists on watching the specials. He never suggested that anyone else needed to, but they follow suit anyhow. That evening on an almost formal schedule they all move wordlessly into the kitchen to line up four of the chairs in a neat row in front of the viewscreen. They check that with luck there probably won't be anything to tend to at the front of the ship, and anyhow the kids are willing to camp up there with the game they've been playing so that they can be alerted to anything unusual.

When the four of them tune in, Ludo Nicolitus is shaking hands with the opening musical guest and just getting down to business. Behind him and a bit to the right, a red velvety curtain hangs to the floor, hugging around its mystery. He tells a few jokes and meanwhile, gradually, the scene is encapsulated eerily by the sound of somebody's uneven breath; the sound crew has turned up the other microphones.

"And so, tried and found guilty for multiple counts of political disobedience and slave theft, our two guests have come all the way from Sweden to be on our show tonight. Let's meet Hanna Andersson and Pia Ramser!"

The motion under the curtain is revealed in the slow yawn of its rising: The uneven legs of two cheap wooden chairs are slightly trembling against the floor, and then the human legs, clothed in black jeans and tall boots, come into view, followed by the finished forms of one tall and one medium-height woman with their hands tied tight behind their backs.

Sometimes they dress them up in something expensive, sometimes not: Pia and Hanna are most likely wearing the rags they were arrested in, sturdy work clothes that at first glance make them look under-dressed to the scarves of satiny thick rope around the necks. Nyota always thinks of some demonic horse's slick black tail when she sees those nooses.

They are gagged, of course, but there's that whimpering wind of air seething in and out of their noses. Not very harshly; the two are brave. Across the chairs, over the shrill red of the set background, their hands are connected.

The last words, which apparently are collected "backstage," are written down and slipped into black envelopes which are presented to Ludo by a woman in a vibrant gown who never frowns. Ludo reads and mocks them with flourish. Nyota used to pay attention to his words, but over time he's become little more than a moving mouth.

Hanna Andersson said only a name, "Kristian," when she was asked. Ludo sweeps out her chair first, after the audience has cheered to do the two separately. Pia lets go of her hand, dimly moaning and slowly soaking the gag in her mouth. But when Ludo comes to caress the back of her chair, she doesn't sob. Her eyes move up from the despaired look at her own feet, at the audience, and her glare is hot and dark until the wood is pulled away from under her boots.

Pia Ramser's last words were, _Thank you for having me, Ludo. Some day we'll have you._

 

They don't speak a word to each other until an hour or so later, when the gradual reanimation seats them around the table and Jim puts down a faded card deck along with a heavy glass bottle.

None of them remembers how exactly the no-drinking pact got dropped for the tradition of only drinking with each other. The stuff is Andorian, a grain liquor you slowly sip at like good tequila (or not, when you have their kind of intentions for the evening). They proceed to drink and drink as if they're throwing their own wake.

At one point Jim, loud and grinning fire, tells a story he has to stand up to tell, about Leonard attempting to play basketball because of a bet placed by some cocky command track students, until Leonard is covering his face with his hands and Nyota is hugging at his shoulders to wrap him up in laughter. A quiet comes after their fit relaxes, and then when Scotty is searching for a forgotten word for something Hosanna mews an inquisitive-sounding noise from the floor that sends them back into giggles. The rowdy clap of voices wakes up Addo and Ehrin who look more unimpressed than annoyed when they come upon the party; Addo accepts a finger of the booze himself.

When Jim gets up to go check the bridge, Nyota's socks slip her shortly across the floor until take-off as he hoists her up in his arms, then carries her down the length of the ship with her giddy shrieks scattering along the dark bronze walls. The panorama of stars blurs as he spins her around once or twice and then they're backing and falling together into the helm chair, catching their breath from laughing. Later the dizziness wanes, Nyota has fallen half-asleep against his shoulder, and he carries her up to bed.

 

She wakes up in the middle of the night, or whatever stretch of quiet on the ship is being prescribed as nighttime. Her feet whisper down the length of the ship's hallway as she carries a PADD under one arm before sliding down to sit on the floor. She flits through the part of the recording they watched earlier and starts where they stopped.

The top suspects and fugitives are sensationalized by the program long before they're ever caught. For the sake of positive showmanship Ludo speaks as if taking for granted they'll be "guests" on the show one day, and fans are invited to give input on what method of execution they would like to see for the celebrity offenders. She's made it into these segments a couple times. Jim almost always does. When she was voted on it was determined she had a face people wanted to see suffocated in a plastic bag. Kirk, in all his fame, has gotten only a loose majority of the multitude of complicated and expensive execution methods, but chances are they'd put him in the electric fence maiden on too low a voltage for it to be the final cut, wait for that to get boring and then drown him, still hot and zapping, in the dunk tank.

A man named Pierce got the electric maiden last month. The name of the method conjures an image of something that actually looks like an iron maiden, but it's really just a tube platform with something around it that looks like technologically fancy chicken wire. They stand them on something that's hard to keep a balance on, sometimes nothing more than stilts, and the electric cage comes up from the floor to engulf them. The orchestra plays a popular tune if it takes a while, but sooner or later everyone slips.

Jim is sleeping hard on the mattress when she goes back to bed. She runs her fingers through the rich brown of his hair, again and again, remembering the other color and the way a much brighter ship's lights used to catch the briefest embers in it. She makes herself turn back in and close her eyes before she can think of safety, just another old friend that isn't coming back.

 

Addo shows an impressive maturity when he's given some details about their next stop, which he's been told could be either quick and relatively easy or quite a bit more risky, depending on how much he's willing to bet with his and his sister's safety.

"This planet is heavily occupied, but it's not enslaved. We already have one contact there who is expecting us to drop off a few things for him, but if we're willing to risk a long stay, we may have someone in one of the camps who's able to give us somewhere to hide out while we try to set up the technology for direct communication to the colony."

Ehrin nudges restlessly at her brother while he studies the notes Jim had his PADD translate for him. Jim smiled when Addo asked to look at them; it's always good to see how often the slaves have found one way or another to learn how to read, even if it's building on the most cursory work on an alphabet they learned as small children.

By the time they're only a couple hours away from the planet, Addo has given the go-ahead on helping in every way they can. Nyota expresses their gratitude, a little surprised by his answer. A lot of the passengers are willing to wait longer to get to safety, but they don't always expect it from the ones who are so young.

"Is there anything we can do to help?" Addo asks. "While you are on planet?"

"Just try not to worry about anything. It'll just be me and Nyota planetside. If you need something, just ask the doctor here, and I'm sure he and Scotty will be willing to ask if they need any of your help."

Addo nods and finally squeezes his sister's shoulders in close to walk her out of the kitchen as the four sit down with their cups of stale coffee for a thorough recitation of the details.

 

The Bahlethi home planet was once, but is no more, a safe spot for several types of refugees who simply needed shelter and to work for their food. The weather and crop variety was friendly to several different types of humanoid species, and the natives were indifferent to the occasional colonization, as long as newcomers had something to offer besides phaser fire. Empirical intelligence ordered the fleet to start monitoring the planet less than a decade ago, and the natives have since been pushed into concentrated areas where their everyday lives are constantly jostled by inspections and other interruptions.

As of now, the number of Terran soldiers on the planet makes it more of an unofficial Starfleet base, but the environment is different from most areas under Terran authority in that slavery is only the suggested threat, just enough to keep relations looking peaceful on the surface. Some entire families belonging to the military have been living there long enough to call it home, and the laxness of rarely disputed cohabitation has given many of the Bahlethi a front row to some of the fleet's basic plans in ways Jim initially found extremely surprising. Their most constant native contact is a man named Kartim who has been having an irregular sexual affair with an Imperial commander for almost four years now and, as he puts it in his fluent standard, "She talks in her sleep."

Kartim first spotted them a few months ago when Jim and Scotty were attempting to steal Starfleet uniforms from that commander's office. He ended up getting them a couple passwords they needed for the security mainframe by the end of the day. He consistently claims he's no political rebel, but Jim isn't fooled. The type of soldiers he spends time around might get far with euphemisms but their efforts obviously aren't about anything nice, and it's possible he just doesn't want to ponder the complexities of the Empire's iron fist but has no problem with something more defiant from people who actually have the organization to do something about it.

Nyota and Jim have their ISF costumes on. Even in the recreational areas, civilian Terrans don't exactly blend in here: Bahlethi have a pronounced alien appearance of hair that stiffly shines like grass reeds and a low halo of freckles around the forehead, and most of the people seen on the planet who aren't natives are human officers. The outfits give them enough confidence to beam right into the back alley coordinates they've taken down beforehand.

They meld right into the throng of people at a large food and craft market that looks to be part of some traveling Terran carnival that makes rounds to a lot of outposts. It's attracting enough civilians to make Jim think they could have done away with the uniforms for today, but the occasional fleet officer is seen picking up something for the spouse or kids.

They have no way of warning Kartim of their impending arrival except by giving him a likely time frame of a few days, but he isn't the only local who knows them and usually word gets to him in one way or another. Nyota and Jim split up, relying on the small communicators attached to their wristbands to check in with each other, and go about the impossible task of trying to be noticed by the natives while being invisible to anyone else.

Jim stalls around down the edge of the market for a while, letting Nyota's head keep at the spark of his peripheral vision. After having no luck spotting Kartim at his usual pharmacy stand across the way, he ends up loosely following Nyota at a gradually closing distance. Forty-five minutes or so go by; as was planned beforehand, they decide to take their chances at the bar where Kartim frequently makes deliveries.

As she's idling on the way there, Jim is only a couple yards behind her when her attention hovers over a spread of jewelry on sale. One of the displays has an array of rings made out of lachtin, an unusual metal produced on this side of the planet with a brown sheen to it that reminds Jim more of polished wood than bronze. Cocking a brow, Nyota picks up a simple thin band and brushes her finger over the surface before setting it back down. Standing off next to the cloth dealers and pretending not to know her, Jim can't help a smile.

She makes it into the pub a little far ahead of him. The place has mostly outdoor seating with a makeshift sports bar atmosphere. Most of the company is Imperial, with their uniform shirts unbuttoned and heavy with sweat after long days in the sun. With any luck, they're too drunk to notice anything odd about Nyota.

When the whole clamor gets started, Jim doesn't think anything of it at first. The big stained billboard-style viewscreen outside turns on but the speakers are drowned out by the crowds, and he notes that it's the _Ludo_ logo coming up during the couple seconds he gives it a glance. He notices the jewelry seller being grabbed lightly by the arm by his neighbor who pulls him into some rushed talk, just before he pinches the ring and snakes his arm back into his pants pocket. Several people are rushing to get closer to the viewscreen, and he's scrutinizing a motion of officers rising quickly from their chairs up at the bar, but doesn't quicken his pace until his comm vibrates.

"Jim, are you seeing this?"

"What?"

Then a separate line patches down from the _Ulysses_. "What is it?" Jim asks, more worried.

"Are they getting that down there?" Scotty is asking. "It's on every frequency."

"What..." Somebody has cranked up the speakers now, and then Jim's first thought is that there wasn't supposed to be an execution, no, they would have announced it, because he hears that quick panic wind of heavy breathing. Instead of looking back at the large screen, he picks up into a run for the bar patio, wrenches his way between a shocked tangle of people until he can see one of the sets above the bottle racks.

The production of the scene is more simplistic than usual, the camera only framing from the foot to the head against the wallpaper of red in the backdrop, and there is no music, no other sound but Ludo Nicolitus, strapped up, gagged with satin, noosed with dark cloth and popping out of his sockets with dread.

Both of his feet are propped on one of the thicker stilts and his hands are bound with something in a bright braided green, his entire body wilting back and forth in the frantic struggle to stay in balance. His usual red jacket looks sweatier and woollier with the frays and rips; between the thick lines of rope his neck shows sashes of angry red from the collar, or the rope, or something else. Jim looks again at the basic background and realizes that the crimson color is only a mocking imitation of his own studio.

Minutes and more minutes seem to go by until, in an automatic cascade, he finds Nyota's head up close to the bathroom corridor and in only a matter of seconds her eyes flit around and find his. They are looking at each other, stunned, when Nicolitus trips off of the stilt.

It's hard to say when the silent shock that has waved over the audience turns into trouble. The officers are commanded to convene somewhere for an emergency meeting, maybe misunderstanding that the transmission interference was much more powerful than something meant to interrupt only local frequencies, and the attempts to round up and shut in the natives for an early curfew is met, somewhere, with a fight. Crowds swerve in and out, blocking views and paths. Around the moment Jim wonders if he's actually going to have to take part in crowd control tactics in order to keep blending in is when he suddenly knows he and Nyota should have kept together.

A seed of panic appears in his mind as it's getting too loud. Even if it would do any good to shout out her name, hers is too uncommon to take the risk.

A few of the locals are taking the chance in the chaos to wreck the bar, breaking windows and dumping over cans of garbage, and the riot control spreads thinner, letting out rowdy spills of people who knock over vendor tables. Almost in a visible crack across all the uniforms to be spotted, authorities get pulled thin by the need to intercept the angrier crowds. Jim's eyes flit over the masses again and again and he yells for standby in his communicator, unable to hear anything Scotty could be saying back.

Their emergency spot is the drinking fountain out behind the grains storage, but there's no way either of them could get there now. Jim forces himself to keep a level head and just keep looking.

Finally, when he's stopping to pant and look around against the increasingly dusky sky, he spots the sliver of red flowing in the wind, tied up around the middle of a pole attached to one of the lookout platforms: the scarf she wore mostly tucked under her uniform, just enough of it bordering her collar to cover up her neck scar. He's already closing the distance towards the platform in the shove of zig-zagging through the sea of people, heart hammering until he picks out her thin form facing away, looking out for him in the direction of the bar. Before she can even react to his arm closing tight around hers he's punched the beacon button on his wrist.

Back in the transporter room they've barely gotten their bearings when Bones is skidding around the corner soon enough for Jim to say, "We're getting out of here, we can't do any good."

"Scotty's already plotted to go as soon as you're aboard," he replies, and sure enough the ship makes its knocking clench into adjusting the dampeners, bobs and cracks into higher speed. Next to Jim Nyota shakily sighs, slowly releasing his hand from hers, and is the first to hop off of the transporter pad.

 

Once they're far enough to finally relax a bit, Jim sits down in the helm chair and the other three lean against the console, their looks all grim and amazed.

"So who did it?" Leonard finally asks.

Jim tosses his hands apart, shakes his head. "It had to be one of the commander's. Who else? Scotty, can you try to find out how widespread the transmission block was?"

"Already on it. The computer took a scan of all the transmission waves while we were still in orbit, I'll have to have a closer look at it in the morning."

"What happened down there?" Leonard is looking at Nyota and Jim. He meets her eyes and they both shake their heads in shared incredulity.

"I have a feeling somebody might be in big trouble for not cutting off that transmission," she says. "I'd love to know how it went over everywhere else."

"First of all, Scotty," Jim says, pointing, "we _need_ another beacon unit like I've said before. Nyota and I were split up, the crowds were deafening. If I hadn't been able to find her..."

"I know, Jim," Scotty says ruefully. "I've been checking the markets up and down. I'll ask around next time we're at the colony..."

"Speaking of which," Jim says, "I think we should start heading there now."

Leonard looks over with a curious brow. "I thought you wanted to stop at H-9?"

"I don't like it. That place was in a riot...Nicolitus was a rich patriot darling and anyone who's much of a Terranist is going to feel like they just got kicked in the jewels. Everybody's eyes are open. I don't want any of us touching an occupied planet for at least a week."

"Right," Scotty acknowledges. After a moment he says, "I'm hitting the head."

Among the remaining three, a thoughtful silence fills the air, the mood barely softened by the far-off sound of Ehrin laughing at a children's program on the screen. When Nyota says it, the realization is sudden but obvious.

"Everyone is going to think we had something to do with this."

Jim says, "Sure thing."

"God help us all," Leonard says, bending over with a frown to pick up the cat. "Anyone up for another drink?"

 

 

 


	5. Dial M for Murder

Arriving at the colony is usually a complicated affair, requiring a lot of scans to find a patch of where Ortwin IV's unusual miasma of radiation would give them enough cover from any nearby ships who might be curious about catching a blip of a ship dropping down on a supposedly unoccupied planet. Then on account of the same radiation they have to let the ship get pulled in on its own pace instead of taking for granted the controls won't get wonky. It's also pleasant, though, watching the blindingly sunny surfaces coming into view in a sandy halo all around the windows. The surface is unforgiving and sweltering where it isn't covered in grey swamps and bigger boiling oceans. This matters little for the colony, as it's under the water.

 _Ulysses_ is left to float like a boat in their usual spot, a large narrow crevice between two rocky cliffs where, very occasionally, some other ship will also be covertly docked. There's a supply of emergency rafts buried under a wispy tree on the beach, but they usually have their own. Jim and Leonard are pulling the release and spreading the quickly inflating boat over the waves as they wait for Scotty to make some final checks on the ship's energy systems. Nyota lets one of her feet sink into the rocky sand, brushing the sweat off her forehead with her oversized shirt, smiling at Addo's reaction when his sister puts sand down the back of his clothes. The boy can't stop checking around them, as if he's never seen a place so quiet before.

Scotty whistles seemingly in jovial response to Leonard's complaints as they're paddling the half-mile, and Jim feels Nyota's laughter as her forehead rests into his shoulder blade. At the head, Bones grumbles loudly back at him as he struggles with Hosanna wriggling against her harness, but he's good-natured in his mocking of Scotty's light mood; they all know why he's excited to get down to the colony.

If not for the perfect stillness of the narrow white structure, it could be mistaken for an earthly sea buoy, but then one goes closer and sees the size of it and then sees the door. There are only a couple feet of flooring bordering the round entrance for them to stand on while hugging the curved wall after one of them yanks down the bell switch, waiting in silence as way down someone is receiving a yammering alert call.

They once waited up here for almost an hour, while the sun was going down and the waves churned darker. It's better to arrive more announced. But this time it's only five or so minutes before Scotty, his ear resting on the industrial door, says, "Ah, I hear someone."

A couple minutes after they hear a primitive bump of the lift coming to a stop and the metal door slides open to reveal a man with a rugged work vest and stained pants. He nods, recognizing them, and they drag the still-deflating boat after them into the lift.

The man who's let them on appears to be half-Klingon, but unable to speak standard, or so Jim judges from how he gives them expressions loaded with curiosity but never says anything.

It's a long drop. One time they brought somebody down who had a big claustrophobia problem but was thankfully able to get over it within a day or two. Most of the refugees are only fascinated, especially when out of the lift they see the lengthy line of windows in the bridge tunnel. On days when the illumination is on, it's a good place to watch for sea life; even when it's not, the occasional speckle of bioluminescent fish goes by.

The history of this entire huge water bunker is only half-known, but it's one built on the sheer luck of the right people being the ones to find it first. Some mystery species, understood to not belong originally to the planet, built it here for refuge, presumably during a war. The right people in this case were a ragtag mixed group who had been transported on a slave ship until they managed with some cunning teamwork to take over the vessel and dump their former owners onto some ice planet. Originally when they discovered this place, there was also a small derelict military base above ground; when it was understood that no one was coming back for it, they immediately got to work tearing down every last trace of civilization that wasn't hidden underwater. The chances of Imperial Starfleet or anyone else poking around down here aren't quite remote, but if they did, they'd have to look hard to suspect there was sentient life nearby. Jim often worries about it, but then reminds himself that the Starfleet here has little in common with the one he loved: Exploring has no sake of its own.

At the end of the tunnel, Addo and Ehrin are talking freely and excitedly with each other, then going quiet with too many thoughts to keep up with once the large metal doors open.

The bunker is roughly a dome shape, measuring a circumference of about 200 yards and towering high up with balcony levels lining along the border. The place echoes like an indoor stadium, most of the noise coming from the bottom level where hundreds of little homes sectioned off by flimsy walls or in cloth canopies surround the middle floor which has a makeshift sports court, tables for trading, and a stage-like platform.

Jim is scanning for any changes that may have been made since they last saw the place. Next to him Scotty says, "Hey. We'll get the kids checked in with Gene."

He means him and Nyota, who have fallen into the routine of this because Scotty seems to be the best at finding people here and because nearly every alien they come across takes well to Nyota. Jim nods, and feels a nudge from Bones. "I think I see Jill's light on," he asks. "You want to drop by?" It means a trek through half of the crowd, but Jim doesn't mind.

Jill's shop is a structure built high up and hugging one of the metal pillars close to the walls, lofted much like a beach house with stairs leading up and a neat little balcony porch off to one side. On the walk over, Jim can see a couple figures heading up the steps and going in. When they finally get to the stairs and enter around the side through the narrow balcony door, their entrance gets no notice from the couple customers or from Jill. She's mostly turned away, but her arms are crossed in what Jim picks up on as irritation.

The two men are surly-looking Klingons, one of whom Jim thinks he's seen making trouble bickering around before. "I asked you for this gun weeks and weeks ago—with these exact specifications—"

"Oh, I'm not denying that this _was_ your gun," Jill interrupts evenly. "It's my gun now, unless you want to give my friend an apology, and I'm talking some serious ass-kissing because there is no way I'm gonna sell _you_ a weapon at all, much less one it took me over two months to finish, knowing that you've got that big a problem—"

"You can't afford not to sell it, cunning little _romulusngan_ , and I'm not one to take pleasure in bartering. I'll give you ten raters more than what we decided, that's all."

Still for all purposes unnoticed by any of the three, Bones and Jim exchange a look that makes Bones smirk and shake his head from where he's taken a few steps along the back wall to look at some of the new cases she has hanging up.

"And I'll keep the gun, with or without your money," she's saying hotly. "You want a weapon, you'll have to go buy a knife. Pistol shop's closed, and if you want to try to keep this discussion going I'll have to remind you that there are nineteen handguns in this case and none on you."

The brief silence is a sudden thud of displeasure. "They're not loaded," the customer's friend scoffs.

Jim shrugs and intercepts, "Mine is."

Jill finally turns her head to see the two of them, and the surprise blows all the anger away from her features. "I thought you guys were still out for a couple more weeks..."

"Small change of plans," Bones says, then backs up a startled step: Jill seems unusually happy to see them, so happy in fact that she immediately goes up and slings Bones into a hug. Bewildered by this, he manages after a couple seconds to give an easygoing huff and mutter, "Bless your heart" as he squeezes an arm around her shoulders. Jim is glancing a warning at the guests, who finally take their resigned exit out the main door.

"Hey, cap," Jill says, in her only slightly mocking tone she uses to insinuate his macho status, bumping a fist into his arm as she passes by. "Where's my engineer?"

"Wherever Gene is, probably."

"Gene's at security. Ah shit, I gotta get my comm from downstairs..." She's out slamming the main door behind her, and Bones finds the padlock on one of the hooks next to the door so they can lock up for her.

They catch up later, straying several yards behind Jill when she spots Scotty and Nyota close to the tactical shed. It's half lost in the echoes and the distance, but she whoops some teasing greeting with a tilt of her head as she comes up to where Scotty's sitting on a short stool. There's an aloof comeback as Scotty's standing, and Jim's attention has strayed back to hear something Bones is saying when he hears the happy little shriek, turns up a half-smile at the sight of Jill's legs kicking high in a circle from where Scotty has her in a spinning hug.

 

Jim finally picks out Gene standing in the water line later. When the young man turns a look on him while pulling cheerily from a sport bottle Jim says, "Woah" and wipes his hand briefly over the jarhead-buzzed bristle where he's used to seeing a thick hang of dreadlocks. Losing all the hair changes his appearance dramatically, no longer softening the arch of his eyebrows but somehow making the pointed shape of his ears flow handsomely with his other long angles.

"Why does everybody have to run their hands on it?" Gene says, squinting and scratching his palm up over Jim's locks, thoroughly enough to leave it a mopped-up mess for a moment. "How do you like it, huh?"

"Trying to mess up all my handiwork," Nyota says blandly, as a greeting.

"None of that, honey," he says in teasing misinterpretation, "he's not my type."

"Sure he isn't," Scotty mumbles in a reflexive dig that doesn't really mean anything.

Gene hits into a chair close to them and flippantly mutters to the air, "Didn't miss that asshole," which pops a long good-natured laugh out of Scotty. Next to Scotty, Jill snaps her gum between a smile and turns the page of a paperback, browsing to find the bit she had a question for him about.

"Did you miss me when you were trying to fix up that lift?" Scotty swings a finger towards one of the less sturdy turbolifts that goes to the balcony levels. "I noticed it's still not working."

"Ha-ha, old man," Gene grunts. "I don't need you messing with anything, not after that four-wheeler cut out when we were hauling ass on...Fergus Beta Alpha Blip Nine Five. Wherever."

"It would have worked fine if you weren't fighting me all the way on the power connecters."

Inflamed with the oft-visited argument, Gene loudly says, "Which you were trying to get to run on carbonium fuel."

"It's ten times the mileage!"

"When it works. I have _never_ seen anything _that_ big run on—"

" _I_ have," Scotty says with innocent dismay. "It was for my first-year project when I was—"

"Maybe." Gene's laughing, mocking but bright. "Maybe back where you're from fairies sneeze into a fuel tank and it runs. That doesn't mean I'm gonna get dropped down onto a damn freezing rock on the backside of nowhere on a ride full of the stuff because some _match'k_ tells me it'll be just fine. What's wrong, Maddi? You remember Jim and everybody?"

Madda's slight figure is now thatched with so much voluminous light brown hair she appears like a dandelion in peripheral vision, and she's been shyly materializing closer to Gene. She stopped to stare mildly at Nyota and Jim—he's never sure whether she actually remembers them as the people who stole her into freedom—and Gene smiles and waves his hand over her face. The spell broken, she clasps her hand around his wrist and mumbles, "Stop" in small annoyance.

"Where's that bouncy thing you had earlier?" Gene asks.

She says something that sounds like, "Shinnibong."

"Whatever it's called. Did you lose it?"

She worries her lips together. "The girls and Jabvo took it."

Jill scowls. "You should give Jabvo a good punch to the face."

Gene says, "Don't listen to Jill. Are you going to remind them that I'm your big brother?" In response to her reluctant expression, he says, "I know you don't want to stand around and watch me fight with people all day. If you come back here again in five minutes I'm not gonna be happy."

" _Labalo_..." She whines the endearment, tugging at his sleeve.

"Go back to the court and stick up for yourself." He absently runs a hand through a few of her waves before he turns her shoulders around. "Go on, babe."

After she's gone back the way she came, Jill gives Gene a wry look. "Bet you five raters she's just gonna go back to the bunks and look through her pictures."

"Nah, she won't," Gene says.

"Sweet girl," Scotty says. "If she stays that quiet she'll turn out to be quite the little ninja."

Bones scoffs. "I don't know; give it a couple years. From my experience you're lucky if they stay quiet."

A small silence descends; Jill holds the place in her book with a finger and is frowning at Bones. "You had a kid?" she asks quietly.

Fidgeting to find himself under the serious attention, Bones takes a second to nod. "Yeah, I've...I've got a girl."

Jill looks down, shrugging in a sad attempt at nonchalance. "...You never told me that."

This flounders Bones a little and Scotty champions in, "I guess it just never came up. Practically all we ever do is talk work, you know."

She gives a little snicker that's slightly too sour. "Yeah. Isn't that the truth."

Somewhat proving this point, Gene snaps and points a finger at the group, remembering something. "Hey. Ludo Nicolitus."

Jim is already shaking his head.

"You know anything about it?"

"Nothing," Jim says.

"You should have him talk to that woman," Jill says to Gene, and several eyes go up.

"What woman?" Nyota asks.

"I told you to leave it for now," Gene is saying to Jill. A few troubled looks go around, though Scotty settles for a teasingly suspicious one.

"Bossy fucker," Jill mumbles.

"I _asked_ you to leave it for now." Gene is about to sit back when he notices Madda, who has returned with a wobbling little frown. Angrily he asks, "What happened?"

Madda bites her lip.

"What did they say?"

She mutters, "They said that if I was your sister I wouldn't be green."

Something goes softer and more resolute at once in Gene's demeanor. "Come here."

When Madda comes walking over he tugs the girl closer to him.

"You know, I'm just as green as you," he says, quietly conspiratorial. "It's just that I'm green on the inside."

A barb of laughter jumps through her sulk, but she still itches at her own arm in anxiety.

"Anyway, look at me and Jill. We're both Romulans, see, but my skin's darker? And isn't she my sister when it counts? They want you to think that stuff matters, but you're smarter than that. Right?" There's a short mumble, and he says, "What? Didn't hear you, string bean."

"...Yeah."

"That's my girl."

Madda smiles again, letting him rock her into a hug. Next to them Jill makes a noise of surprise at the sudden motion of Scotty pulling her in to plant a kiss on her shoulder, and they all laugh.

 

Later they play a card game, using a large weapons chest as a table, while a heavy scuffle breaks out a few yards away. The fight, as far as Nyota can tell, has something to do with a torn boot lace and somebody's drink getting spilled, and what her ears pick up has her as convinced as ever that insulting somebody's mother is equally antagonizing in almost all cultures.

Casting a look at the first hard shove of the Klingon into the Romulan, Bones slides his eyes over to Gene and spreads his hand toward the brawl as if he were motioning that they've just opened the buffet. Barely looking up from his hand enough to notice the gesture, Gene says, "It's my night off."

"You don't get nights off." That's from Alel who makes this remark with his still traceable hitch of a Romulan accent, just now quickly taking a seat next to Gene. The extent of his friendly greeting to the rest is an acknowledging nod before he snoops at Gene's cards. Nyota thinks he looks even less boy and more man than the last time they saw him. His growth spurt has called for collecting the same rag mix of multi-cultural clothing they're used to seeing on the Terranized ex-slaves, but he'll probably always be several inches shorter than Gene.

"Morning, prince," Gene sings wryly. "How's your head?"

"Better," Alel says. "Did they kill Ludo?"

People don't give Alel's sense of humor enough credit. Nyota sniggers and gives an answer in Romulan and they exchange a couple bits of banter while Gene pouts from outside the language barrier, Alel absently rubbing a hand at the back of his neck as his way of retreating into politeness takes over and he asks about their progress.

Scotty is returning from getting some snacks with Jill and as he sits down he says, "Doin' alright, Al?" He gets a shrug and a half-smile.

Later on some mix of rock and reggae music is playing from someone's data box, and Jill takes to contentedly looking at Madda doing a bobbing little dance without a trace of self-consciousness a few steps off, while the game finishes over slow conversation. Then with a more serious lean forward, Gene thinks to ask all of them what they were doing when Ludo's assassination was aired. After they tell the story, Nyota is surprised to hear that they got wind of the news all the way from Terra. The colony has a complicated message tree that bounces through several planets and then makes it to one of the food couriers who circles by once every couple weeks; she's surprised that whatever Earth contact filed away the rumor for them didn't assume they'd already heard.

After she makes a comment about this, Jim shrugs while pouring himself a short knock of whatever clear gut polish Gene started drinking a few minutes ago. "Brighton is always pretty thorough."

Alel's frown gives away a bit more than the hesitation in Gene before he says, "No, it didn't come from Brighton. Has nobody told you?"

Scotty's antennae goes up, and he looks away from the two-player game he and Jill were trying to figure out. Jim evenly asks, "Told me what?"

"We haven't heard from him since..." Gene shakes his head. "Since that time he contacted us from Sweden, actually."

They all exchange looks, all except for Jim who still looks intently at Gene. Leonard says, "That's gotta be at least three months now."

"I just thought Jill would've let you know, but forget it, okay. It doesn't necessarily mean anything. He was never too eager about it, maybe he just got squirrely."

"He'd let us know if he got squirrely, I think," Leonard says.

"He does things on the dot or he doesn't do them at all," Jim agrees. They sit there for a long moment. Then he goes into a flinch and has to get up to pace. " _Shit_."

Jill says, "There's no point in stewing about it unless you just want to make yourself sick. That's why I didn't—"

"Not now, Jill," Jim says in a whining demand, reeling about a couple steps. "It's not right. There's no way in _hell_ they know that he's in contact with us, and it's not like he's some internal informant. Most of what he ever did was give us a ship. He didn't even give it to us, he sold it to us."

"You don't think that's enough to get him in it?" Scotty asks.

"How would they know he knew anything?"

"Maybe they don't," Nyota says, "but who's to say they didn't go after everyone in the Knot? Particularly the people who may have noticed anything about us?"

"...So what then?" Jim says, low and bitter. "What? He's dead? Or we'll see him next week on the broadcast when they find a show host who's even better than Ludo?"

"If something happened to him," Nyota slowly says, "you can't say we're to blame. The situation is more complicated than that. Terra is so paranoid right now, he would have been in trouble sooner or later."

Alel asks, "Does he know where—?"

"No." Jim shakes his head, certain it's that question even if he seems almost dismayed to be asked. "He has no idea where this place is, unless Gene told him and you know he didn't."

Gene looks at Jill sidelong, then reluctantly asks, "But is there any way he could have figured it out, if he needed to? If he somehow traced the messages beyond his direct contact, and asked them—?"

"I doubt it," Scotty says, raising a brow, "but anyway, why would he?"

Jim nudges up to Nyota's side, his hands resting on the edge of the table as he leans down, giving Gene a speculative look. After a moment he asks, "What's got you all worrying about the security of the colony?"

"Aren't we always worried about that?" Gene asks, after a fractional pause.

Nyota notices Jim trying a look at Jill instead. She just gives him a blinking wall, and he looks away.

After a moment Jim sits back down. He says, "Scotty, cut the Terran deck. Poker."

 

Some time after the tone has lightened back into quick conversation, Gene leaps halfway off-topic to say to Jill, "Hey, did you show him?"

Taking a second to realize what he's talking about, Jill looks up from her hand with a slow little grin. "Oh, I forgot."

"Come on, get them."

Jill's modesty has turned into a prouder edge when she returns with a duffel bag that has a whole lot of something clacking inside of it that sounds like tin cans. Dumping a few of them on the table, she presents the phasers that are so tiny and light that they look like toys.

"No shit, you figured these out already?" Jim exclaims as he's testing the feel of one.

"Watch it: that tab on the end? Pull it out. Just—yeah. Hear that little whirring?" It's a very small whining noise he has to put the gun right up to his ear to pick up on. "That's the charge. It takes about thirty seconds, and when the charging's done you should get at least two, maybe three or four shots before it dies. It's no big firepower, but the point is that they're light and a slave could hide them in their panties for about as long as they need."

"And you've tried shooting them?" Scotty asks.

"Yeah. Every once in a while one will come up a dud, but they're mostly good."

Rising out of his chair to meet Jill's stance with a grin, Scotty stretches out his arm to give Jill's hand a silly jiggling shake. "Congratulations, Jill. You've invented the world's first disposable phaser." She puts up her bottom lip in a serious pout, feigning the same businesslike air.

Alel ends up being a fan of poker, staying even after Gene has gone off to bed, but only for the half hour before he has to go show up for a shift helping out in the medical tent. Bones folds and calls it a night and Nyota follows to help set up their bunk area shortly after. Jill and Scotty remain Jim's entertainment for an hour or so.

Jill has scrounged up these irresistible pastries that seem to always materialize on recreation nights at the colony, and a Romulan Jim vaguely recognizes comes by to swipe one. She tilts off some harmlessly irritated comment as he's already walking away and he looks back with his pointer knuckle wrenched between his teeth. The gesture is a vulgar insult, but being one that Jim eventually learned comes uniquely from the Knot, there is always an exchange of commonality in using it now.

"Do you bite your knuckle at us, sir?" Jim absently mutters.

Without looking up Scotty chuckles and quotes, "Is the law of our side if I say ay?"

Jill may well recognize Shakespeare, but she interjects, "The law better not be on your side. No sir."

Scotty raises a brow. "Everybody needs a couple laws. We're just breaking somebody else's."

"You're right. I for one have exactly sixty-seven laws." She says this with an emphatic nod, landing her fist on the table. The two of them are in a state, buzzed on that humor that strikes when it's time to hit the cots.

Scotty says, "That's right, what's the sixty-sixth law, I can't remember?"

"The law that you gotta go find me a beer when Jim quotes Shakespeare. But only when you're wearing..." She draws it out, giving him a speculating look, "Black underwear."

"She's good for a guess, this one." He gets up, Jim smiling tiredly after him.

Jill is starting to undo her braid for the night, making a face as the tie snags. After a moment Jim asks, "That guy who just came by...I seem to remember Alel doesn't like him much."

Jill gives a considering look. "That's Rai. He's been a real load in the past, but he's one of the good ones. The thing is, he used to be really awful to us spays. He would badmouth the League all the time because of Tom. He didn't like the idea of a lab nape being in charge of protecting everyone. But then..."

He frowns, already feeling the air begin to stir into something sadder.

"He was different, after the Knot was attacked. He must have lost somebody...hell, we all did, it did a number on everyone, but...He came to the memorial when Tom's ashes were buried. He didn't say anything, but he was there. I remember on _Ulysses_ he pretty much kept to himself; you probably barely remember him from then. I'd never seen him like that. In a way it was kind of a relief when he started taking digs at people again, but it's never like it was before. And you should see the way he walks on eggshells around Alel even though he's bigger than him." She chuckles shortly. "I heard Alel socked him once. If it was anybody other than Rai I wouldn't believe it."

"Alel..." Jim says the name in a speculative drawl. "I always thought he had more fire than he let on. He is more traditionally Romulan than the rest of you, after all."

In an amused rueful way, not sure if she's being teased, she says, "Being Romulan is no excuse."

"Huh." He leans back. "I don't think you would have said that a year ago."

"Eh, you might be right. But I have a stupid optimism about forcing people to suck it up and get along. Maybe...I don't know, maybe it's because Tom and I used to wipe the floor with each other, back when we were still kids." She shakes her head, eyes going a little still and distant. "If you'd seen the two of us you wouldn't have been able to believe we could ever be close friends."

Jim feels a sad smile cross his face. "You'd be surprised."

Jill has spoken to him about Tom on several occasions, but he never needed to be told what it was between the two of them, having understood from the only time he ever met the man that he was her brother in every way that mattered. There are times he looks from a distance on the mutating stages of her mourning and is afraid of it, almost in the same way he was afraid of her when she passed comments on their naive understandings of the world around them back when they were all on Terra and she had no inkling of where they came from. But then even when Jim sees her darker moments of being reminded of her old friend in a sudden bitter stab, there's a strange emotion in him that perversely, passionately envies her for that particular pain; for the age of it, for how far-reaching and gradually overturning the roots rumbled under their lives before the whole of it was severed away for good.

He has to remind himself surprisingly often not to compare distance to death, even when enough bad days and booze makes it feel exactly the same. Jill would give anything for Tom to be alive somewhere, in some safer place, never mind if she couldn't ever see him again. Jim lets her have the last pastry.

When Scotty returns with a couple drinks, he takes in the frowns. He attempts, "Not to worry, now, there's always a dance at the end."

Jill ignites with soft giggles. "What are you talking about _now_ , you weird bastard?"

 

Jim doesn't have to wonder about "the woman" for much longer. He is introduced shortly after dinnertime the next day.

"All the way back to Earth's pretty risky, I know," Scotty is saying. "But if we could trust one of the allies to make a drop of those disposables..."

"Problem is contacting Terra involves so many runarounds and codes as it is, we'd never be able to reach someone again if the rendezvous point was compromised," Jill says.

"You thinking of going back up with us for a while?"

Charlie has come up with her clipboard and bends in to say to Alel, "You wanted the sign-up schedule for medical."

"Thank you," Alel says, taking it. "Why does your hair look so sweaty?"

"It's wet," she explains with the same near-curtness. "The shellfish."

"What?" Gene asks.

"You ate them."

"You helped the fishers catch us dinner?" Scotty cheerily asks; her lack of response doesn't seem to show any understanding of the point of flattery here, but he goes on, teasing the others, "Nevermind the Genes and Alels, Charlie, a pair of you could run this place."

"The—" Bones sniggers in the middle. "They don't have the genes and alleles for it—the—" he stammers as Jim kicks him.

Alel blinks at him. "No, I thought you know it's pronounced—"

Jim is groaning, "The old dad jokes have started."

Nyota shakes her head and starts to say something, then trails off, cut off by something Bones says but making a gesture to shush him. "Gene, is that your terminal comm?"

Gene's already snapping it up, having heard the voice crackling through on the security frequency; when he holds it up to his ear, Jim is just next to him and happens to catch the code that means an inmate has escaped. Jim ignores the exclamation point in his mind at not knowing they even had any kind of prisoner and is already standing up quick and going for the phaser in the duffel he happened to decide to carry his reading in today. Gene is barking a question into the comm and getting some answer that makes him launch in one direction, and Jim pursues, both of them pulling their firearms up in unison.

"Kirk, requesting sitrep," he manages to yell into his own comm. "Describe target."

He gets no answer. Gene takes a sudden left into the narrow gap between the platform and the lighting consoles. Jim decides to run straight and maybe catch somebody out on the other side, even though he won't know who to look for. This ends up getting him separated from the action; anyone who was behind there, including Gene, must have taken another left between the consoles.

"Kirk!" Gene's voice startles him on his personal comm. "Get out in the open!"

He squints and shakes his head in confusion, circling around and idling into an opening away from the sparse market crowds. "What—"

"Just do it, alright?"

He stays right where he is and for the moment only tries to be useful by scanning for anyone who looks suspicious. No one even appears to be alone, much less like they're trying to blend in. Then he sees her, and is thrown just a bit off his guard by the fact that she's looking right at him and seems to have been walking up to him, too willing. She's only several feet away, her eyes searching him, and so composed that his warning bells almost miss it. Nothing else about her snags at him quite like the eyes, big and dark: He thinks he's seen them before.

He's barely gotten tossed into this suspension of sense before the world reels back into fast motion: Nyota, having made a run for them after borrowing an extra comm, is slowing up at Jim's side; just then the woman is cracked out of the streaks she profiled into the air by Gene blowing down from out of the crowds and folding her arms behind her back.

Even allowing the motion to bring her to her knees, her bearing seems to coil in only when she lets it, and she's still looking at Jim as the cuffs wrap and click behind her back. She smiles.

"Let's go," Gene says to her, the words almost a familiar exasperation. He helps her stand, giving a pointed look at Jim as if trying to read something there, and then he marches her off. Jim can feel Nyota looking at him, and after a moment finally meets her eyes.

She reads him and eventually prompts, "You know her?"

"...I've seen her before," Jim says, shaking his head, "but I can't remember where."

 

Next to the brig compartment is a sturdy enclosed cabin that tends to collect confiscated objects and smaller weapons that don't belong with the regular security stuff. Everyone is there, eventually even Charlie who seems relatively less chafed than everybody else, as is her M.O. She stands close by the door surveying the conversation with crossed arms; Jim and Gene mostly take turns pacing in restless orbit while the rest are uncomfortably perched around the narrow table, some on a set of chipping-off bar stools.

Gene is saying, "So you recognize her."

"Like I said, I don't know who she is, but...I think I've met her before, yeah. Of course who knows if it was _her_ or—"

"Right." Gene takes a moment to frown at the floor. "I gotta admit most of the reason we didn't tell you everything sooner is that I was really hoping you wouldn't say that, but then I kind of needed you as bait out there. It was that, and wondering if we might be able to catch her in a lie if we got more out of her before you came along."

Jim stops pacing, holding up a hand. "So she _was_ looking for me."

"Yeah. She claims up and down she's here for a good reason, but won't tell us anything until it goes through you first."

"So you're not just worried she's Starfleet," Nyota says heavily. "You know that she is."

"We don't have a name, she just gave us a fucking _initial_. So we have no way of looking her up, but she claims she was once an Imperial officer, and is now one of Spock's."

"How convenient," Bones says.

"Yeah. And how are we supposed to take her word for it when she came in possessing Starfleet-issue goods and didn't try to explain herself until she got caught?"

"Okay. I'm sure we're all officially freaking out," Jim says, "but let's keep in mind that if there was general knowledge on the part of Starfleet about where this place is, she would _not_ be the only one here. Right?"

Jill lets out an aggravated noise. "What if she isn't the only one? What if she's the recon and they're just trying to see if they can pick up anything else before they come in and drown the whole colony?"

"And they'd send her in with suspicious military equipment?" Jim shakes his head. "I don't think so. What, did you have her tagged from the first day she showed up? It would be way too sloppy."

"Then why the hell can't she throw us a hint if she's such a good little freedom fighter?" Gene demands. "We tried _everything_ and all she does is ask—"

"Hold up?" Bones levels at Gene, "What's 'everything'?"

Jim sees the hammered nail of Gene's jaw clenching tight; in front of him, Nyota's eyes widen a fraction before he mutters, "No, I didn't...torture her. Not exactly."

"What the hell does 'not exactly' mean?"

Gene seems to almost answer straight, then just retorts, "Don't look at me like that."

Bones looks to Scotty, who remains civilly silent but can't help a fall of disapproval in his look that Gene hardly misses.

"You know what, fuck all of you," Gene says. "The colony is all we've got. I've got a family here. What would you have done if you thought somebody was about to blow it all away and the only person who could tell you whether it was true wouldn't open her fucking mouth? I'm not saying I _liked_ it, hell, Tom isn't here anymore to tell me—"

"I'm just telling you you didn't have to—" Leonard's protest is interrupted by some tug of his attention from Jill, who maybe nudged at him under the table with a kick; she shakes her head and somehow conveys something that makes him relent with a sigh.

"What was the initial?" Jim asks.

Gene shoves his hands in his pockets. "'M.'"

"Give me the most detailed Starfleet roster you have, I'll see if anything rings a bell."

Bones scoffs in disbelief. "That could take all night."

"We've already checked all the pictures under 'M' surnames, but our rosters are mostly outpost crews," Gene says. "Still, you could look."

"Whatever her reason is for wanting to talk to me, I think her plan is to make me curious enough to get the chance," Jim says, then shrugs. "And it's working. But I want to have at least something on her."

Later when he's being piled with the two rosters, he looks up long enough to get Nyota's attention. "Did you think maybe you've ever seen her before?"

She takes a seat next to him, hesitating in thought. "I'm not as sure as you are, but I thought...maybe I had. What's strange is I couldn't tell you where or when I would have seen her on the ship or anywhere else, but I'm picturing her in science. Well, maybe not science, but—"

"Blue?"

"Yeah."

"I kinda thought that too. In which case I don't think this will help; outposts are relatively low on blues personnel."

"...You think her name actually does begin with 'M'?"

Jim is staring forward in consideration, itching his knuckles over his chin. "Gene. She didn't let on anything about what kind of relationship she may have had with Kirk at some point?"

"... _Well_." Next to him Alel gives something like a cough. "It came up. She was getting into a freaky amount of trivia about you, and since it's not exactly state secret I indulged, just to try to weed out more about her, though I could only, you know...operate on _assumptions_."

Jim shifts his position, doing a mild double take. "Trivia?...You have _assumptions_ about me?"

"Eh, only that you're obviously some notorious flirt with a dirty little secret penchant for," Gene takes a dramatic breath, "monogamy."

Alel starts to lean into Nyota's direction, and she bends in to whisper a translation of the word. Jill's dark mood finally breaks into a helpless snigger.

"This isn't helping," Jim says.

"Molly," Bones says. "Millie, Mia, Maura, Michelle."

"Madelyn?" Nyota chimes in.

"Monogamy," Alel mutters reflectively, which throws Gene into a snicker.

"You two," Jill scolds, then can't resist herself. "Minnie?..."

"Really?" Gene rags. "An assassin named _Minnie_?"

"Oh, she's an _assassin_ now."

All of them flinch in some small surprise at Charlie joining in to keep them on task: "McCoy, MacDonald. Melville..."

Scotty comes out of a yawn. "Morrison, Mendes, Montoya..."

"Mulligan."

"Marlena," Jim says, at the end of an exhale.

Sensing the color of certainty in his tone, they all lock their glances on him.

"It's Marlena Moreau." He nods and gets up out of his chair. "I'll explain later."

 

The harsh door alarm complains for a couple seconds before Gene punches in the code, accompanied by Jim just behind him.

"How did she get out, anyway?" Jim mutters just loudly enough for Gene to hear him.

"She managed to get up into where the chamber connects to the vents somehow. That's why we switched her into the other cell."

Jim examines the dark abyss of the ceiling. "But that's gotta be twenty feet up."

Gene shrugs broadly, then gives some gesture as if to say, _Have fun with her_.

The one light in the brig cabin is a cheap lamp hanging up high in one of the corners; Moreau is stored in one of the two cagey compartments, her profile swerving under the twitch of fluorescence as she turns calmly to greet them. Gene, after his final hesitation, snaps the key card through the lock and opens the compartment to let in Jim, who steps inside with as cavalier a presence as he can muster, hands in pockets.

She's sitting in a wooden chair and, he notices now, wearing a neutral-colored trench coat that probably used to make her look expensive but now wears a good amount of dirt and some deep brown stains down the front. Her black hair is tied back in a scarf but looks like it hasn't been combed in a while. Despite all this she doesn't look like a prisoner; she has an air of contained pleasure, which seems only somewhat more improbable than the vigorous beauty of her. Above her half-smile the cheekbones are shaped to catch patches of shadow in a not quite sharp way, affecting some demureness that's contrary to a blush, and the dark slopes of her eyebrows draw into something effortlessly sly.

"Hello, James," she says.

His hand is absently grasping to pull the other chair over. He says, "I don't really go by that," as he sits down.

"Ah." Her eyes float along the floor in what looks like faint disappointment. "Do you remember me?"

"Unfortunately I'm not here for small talk, Moreau," Jim says. "What do you want with the colony?"

"How do you suppose it's something I want with the colony and not just you?" Her voice is soft and high, almost musical, but it cracks at the air with a deliberate press of diction. She barely reacted to him knowing her name.

"Everybody wants something with me, so I figured we'd get the less obvious business out of the way."

She allows a hollow laugh. "Looks like you do know how to cut to the chase."

"I guess I should back up, though, and ask it this way: What does Spock want with this place?"

Her mind pinpoints the small trap immediately. "And who says Spock wants anything with the _place_?"

"Are you pulling strings for him or not?"

"I am."

"Then how did you find the hideout? Why did you go through all the trouble of looking for it? You realize the location is worth a bounty ten times as big as my head, and you just came waltzing in?"

"Calm down, sweetheart. If _you_ found the place without a map, why can't I? I came here by way of the underground just like anyone else; I did enough of what you've been doing to get myself in enough trouble for somebody to give me the same heads up they've been giving the factory slaves...I just..." She puts her hands up. "I just did all of that with the goal of getting here so I could talk to you because nobody knows where you are at any time except that maybe you'd end up here."

Jim rubs the heel of his hand along his forehead, hesitating for a moment. "Does Spock know?" he asks gruffly.

"Know what?" she returns.

Agitated, he says, "The colony. Does he know where it is?"

"No." She blinks at him. "I don't imagine my word is enough, but it's true, I've been unable to communicate with him ever since I confirmed the coordinates. Why does it make a difference?"

"This place," Jim says slowly, "is a home. It is a refuge and it has to be untouched. It is not a place for you to come looking to _recruit_ anybody. Are you going to deny that that's what you're doing?"

She considers him, not answering.

"You came here looking for me. If you're really working with Spock, who as far as I can tell is trying to make things better but seems to be doing so by instigating a full-on war, I can only conclude you have gotten the idea in your head that I will lend my leadership to one of your efforts. The answer is fuck no." He looks straight at her, growing on edge by how unfazed she looks by his initial refusal. "But anyway you've been in here for a while and you haven't had the best of months, so I will at least entertain what you have to say."

Moreau has her arms crossed now, and she thinks for a long moment before speaking. "What is it that makes you think we're on different sides?"

"I don't think we are, actually, but I...do not trust Spock and nothing that I suspect he is responsible for is the type of action I am willing to take in order to run this world over. I don't know if it can be run over, but if this tension only escalates, it gets harder for me to help anyone. I may be trying to be a lot of things right now but I haven't exactly been a soldier in a while."

Moreau looks at him in now confused speculation. "You put your trust in severely anti-Terran ex-napes, you're willing to sit here and have this conversation with a former ISF member...but you outright refuse to place any trust in Spock, who is someone you knew pretty well in your dimension."

"One thing at a time." Jim gives her a mock-polite smile. "We're not talking about my first officer and we're not going to talk about him. But I knew _that_ one well enough to think that _this_ Spock has something pretty rough in him that he might not be handling with care. How do I know that he somehow decided this whole thing is the ethical, rational choice, that he's not just acting on some jealous illogical rage that Earth survived Nero and his planet didn't?"

"Would it matter, so long as the results are the same?"

"Yes," Jim says carefully. "Is he doing it for himself or for everyone else? Did I help show him it should be done or just that it can be done? He's too hard to figure out. He bombs this legislation building here, and then hangs a show host there, and I'm not sure whether that's a man who's after the statement it makes or just the bloody result."

"Oh." Some grim impression of modesty: "Who says the show host was all him?"

He stares her down as she leans farther back and lets out a sigh through a gritty smile. His expression should get across the question he wants to ask.

"...Okay, here's your unlucky celebrity host. Nicolitus was born Ludovic Lambert," she begins to list off in a show of boredom. "He was adopted after his parents gave him up at the age of two; he later experienced a stint of heavy alcoholism during his teenage years but was not a delinquent and he had a generally healthy psychological profile. He participated in running a brothel and was still doing this when he started taking jobs in theater and a whole lot of pretentious performance art gigs. He gained a lot of popularity doing the latter and was approached for a talk show host position after his twenty-second birthday. It started as a more mildly sadistic carnival—dropping criminals in dunk tanks full of water laced with skin irritants, things like that...But then when the world started to change, the stakes changed. The new execution format was his idea."

She waits for him to get the point. He thinks he does.

"You really are different from him. When James would lie down next to me, and he'd look so...well, it doesn't matter, but he'd say, 'I need you to get rid of somebody for me, babe.' I could usually get it done very fast, but I wasn't the type who didn't want to know my target. He was never wrong, but I never took his word for it on anyone."

"How could Ludo be your target, with you stuck in here?"

"I set the thing in motion a couple months ago. Just arranging the place and time is most of the work; I wish I could have been there though. The whole idea was to make it a terrible little parody, but from what I hear they didn't quite dress it up enough."

Jim swallows, probably being immensely predictable for asking after a moment: "What kind of people did Kirk always ask you to kill?"

"All kinds. They only had to have one thing in common."

"They wanted him dead."

She shrugs.

"Any particular reason he had so many enemies?" he asks sarcastically.

"You can hardly talk about having enemies, Jimbo."

"Are you actually making that comparison?"

"I'm not trying to say his reasons were ever like yours, but where do you get this idea that he was the definition of tyranny? He built himself out of the situations he was in—"

"He was a very high-ranking leader in the steamroller. What the fuck do you expect me to think of him?"

"It was either ISF or go to prison. He had no intentions to enlist before he got arrested. As for the definition of 'leader,' I met plenty of people in positions like that who settled for keeping their heads down as much as possible. You would call that cowardice, but then I wonder, what would you have done to keep your people alive if Spock hadn't helped you escape from the fleet?"

"He chose to get into the situation. I would have taken prison."

Now she leans forward, resting her hands on her legs and looking at him. After a moment she says, "Yeah. I guess you would have. But maybe you should talk to Gene some time about what most of the prisons are like here."

That comment makes a jarring landing as Jim blinks at it: He can't think of any single reason why Gene would have told her about his time being worked in a jail, but it's not like she could have found out any other way.

She goes on: "And consider for a second that Terrans are nearly as enslaved by the Empire as anyone else."

"No," he says, shaking his head slowly. "They're not. It's not like I don't know what you mean, I'm not an idiot, but where does it end? Some captain or admiral who's 'forced' to do the wrong thing because he might get thrown to the dogs if he doesn't? The advisors who know they'll get their heads delivered to the empress if they speak out of turn and she's having a bad day? She's the top of the ladder but she's only one person; they allow her that power, either because they don't care, or because it's just this...selfish pants-pissing reverence for the status quo."

"Okay, not _enslaved_ , but you acknowledge that the power held over Terrans is very real. And in case you haven't noticed, there's a little bit of civil conflict going on over on Earth right now and has been ever since that law infuriated so many people."

"You're talking about Mazel's amendment." His mind immediately flinches with dark memories of the attacks, putting him a bit more on his guard.

"Yes. But what is your idea of why that law got passed in the first place, Kirk? I mean, what did you objectively think of it, when you weren't scared about what it meant for you?"

"What did I..." Jim has to pause to turn over some things he only half-considered before. "Alright. The thing is, it was a politically insane move. Before, they had very small bands of rebels allowing ex-slaves to shelter up in their back yards; and then, they decide to make it okay to treat their own supposedly superior species as slaves themselves simply because they sympathize with them? Not only that, but with the type of intense paranoia that makes it okay to inform on your human neighbor simply because they have done something _suspicious_ , and no warrants needed to search their homes or even bring them into custody based on any of that, no legal protection for them against other crimes once they've been listed on suspicion. Of course things got messy as hell, of course it blew up in the government's face when people were enraged to see their family members hauled off by slavers. But you can't expect a lot of sense in those things."

"There is sense enough," Moreau points out, "if somebody who was behind the votes wants the Empirical order to fail."

The idea snags with intrigue, too tantalizing and also, considering how badly the Knot paid for it, too horrifying to feel like a real possibility. "Are you telling me Spock's nudging someone in the counsel?" he demands, a small dark laugh escaping him.

"Well, he doesn't share everything with me. I'm only suggesting. It would be a difficult operation to swing; after all, the votes are often only symbolic except in cases when the advisers are unanimous, and even then...But I'm sure you can imagine that with enough credits any of them can be bought, and the empress does feel some personal loyalty to some of them."

"So just so I'm not lost: Are you telling me this is what happened?" It feels like she's been tiptoeing around hers or the commander's responsibility for anything so far in this conversation, and Jim feels vaguely like a kid falling for an uncle's cheesy pranks, grabbing for the candy bar just before it gets repeatedly snatched out of reach. She gives him a mockingly patient smile and he shifts in annoyance.

"I'm making a point that it very well could have happened. What I can tell you for sure is that Spock intends to divide Terra against itself in every way possible so that they'll be weak in the face of the real conflict. And if the Empire is under the impression that he is doing something quite a bit louder from the start, in the meantime, he thinks that's a perfect distraction from settling affairs between their own."

If he thinks about it, Jim is sure that Spock's "louder" actions—the assassination, the couple ambiguous bombings—are just the right amount to mostly serve as some ominously vague threat. Beforehand, he had a hunch that the commander was after starting a war but not really being a part of it; now everything is stacking up towards a very deliberate attack on what will supposedly be a less unified enemy. All in a short moment, he has realized how big the numbers must actually be. "How many people are on his side?"

"It's difficult to say; we have more alliances with entire species than we have armies we can actually count."

"What species?"

"Many of the Klingons we were able to gather, for one; they're the muscle, obviously. For other operations we have a strong association with the Nyroks. Have you heard of them?"

"Sure, they recently staged a successful uprising against one of the Terran-occupied continents on their home world...Aren't they telepathic in some way?"

"In a way," she says, but doesn't elaborate.

Gene comes back into the cabin now, carrying a plastic pitcher of water and a couple stacked cups. He sets them down with an affected bland expression towards Moreau and a more curious look in Jim's direction; Moreau looks mock-graciously at him and Jim finds it incredibly hard to believe this woman was recently tortured in some way. Instead of leaving this time, Gene leans into one of the corners with his arms crossed.

"I'm a little embarrassed to make it obvious that we haven't exactly gotten to the point," Jim mumbles to him, and Gene makes a tired, unsurprised noise. To Moreau he asks: "What does Spock want with _us_?"

She fills up her cup and takes a neat gulp before setting it down with a clack onto the floor next to a chair leg. Then she explains.

 

 

 

 


	6. The Past and Pending

Everyone would have gone to bed by now if they weren't waiting to see what the deal is with Moreau. After helping Leonard scrounge up something from the kitchens that he could feed to Hosanna, Nyota started taking a meandering walk around, ending up in the long tunnel on the opposite side from where the holding is entered. This area was presumably built as a kind of lookout compartment, but it's mostly glanced on in recreation, with parents walking their kids down here to look for fish out in the water. Nyota likes the sense of moonlight emitted by the sharks that look like miniature hammerheads; they usually only appear when the schools of prey are swimming by, but occasionally a straggler will linger close enough for its rocky luminescent surfaces to glow just beyond the glass. 

In the middle of the rounded end of the widening tunnel she finds herself alone and sits on the floor, curls her legs in to cross her arms over her knees. She thinks of a few things: the scent of burning bodies sifting through the air throughout the whole town after the Knot was attacked, the murmur of Brighton's voice she would often hear drawling from the office back when she worked for him, Commander Spock's cold demeanor that told her she wasn't going home again on the first day they got into this world. Mostly she tries to think of nothing in particular and push through all the weariness she never quite gets a chance to scrub off.

When she's leaving the end of the tunnel later, she starts back toward the brig cabin. She almost doesn't notice Leonard's voice carrying from far to the right, where the overhead lights have been shut off for the evening. For a second she wonders if she imagined it; then she makes him out under the synthetic tree in the little faux garden next to the medical tent, in a patch of the illumination coming out from under a wall of the tarp. She also sees Jill, just as quickly as her instinct understands the body language: his tight gesturing movements and the restless cadence of her pacing, her hung head. Then Leonard grasps tightly on her shoulder and is shaken sharply off, his mostly unheard speech and his motions becoming more emphatic, almost desperate. Nyota wonders if they would be shouting if they weren't trying not to be heard.

For a moment she stands there stilled by the cold shot of concern, then finally manages to turn her back on it and walk away.

 

Jim wasn't sure whether or not Moreau should be present to help explain what the hell is going on, but questions are sure to come up that he hasn't gotten the chance to ask yet. Gene grunts a knowing warning before he wraps Moreau's hands in front of her in vinyl cuffs; after his comment she says, "But you're such a fun little cat to set on a chase."

Barbed against her familiarity, Gene pushes her at the shoulders. "Walk up ahead." He has his gun, but he doesn't take it out. She starts leading their walk back to the security cabin, and on the way out of the brig Jim notices something: dusty trails of what looks like pale blue sand strewn on some areas of the floor. Noticing the glance, Gene says, "Watch out you don't ever inhale that crap."

"What is it?"

"Sometimes it's called fever dust. It's a hallucinogen that's been making the rounds from some dealer claiming it can be used as a truth drug."

"Can it?"

"Maybe there's something wrong with this strand, but I don't think so." Gene's hooded eyes are closely watching Moreau. "It sure as hell doesn't seem pleasant, but as an interrogation tool..."

"You didn't mean for it to hurt her," Jim infers. Up ahead, there seems to be a shift in Moreau's shoulders.

"No," Gene says very quietly. After a few seconds he adds, "But maybe I would have been more careful if I hadn't been tempted to."

Back at the long narrow room built in next to the security shed Bones has gotten a tall cup of the colony's own bitter brew to stay awake. He takes one look at Moreau, and from the eyebrow he cocks in Jim's direction he wonders what kind of charged look he's getting from her. She doesn't wait for an invitation before she toes out a chair and sits down, her bound hands set neatly in front of her. Nyota arrives with the others and takes a seat next to Jim, not meeting eyes with Moreau until she's greeted with a sighing, "Lieutenant Uhura."

"I'm afraid we've never met," Nyota says.

"But it sure is a pleasure," Moreau replies, ignoring her flatness. "I've been waiting a long time to get a look at your little crew, Kirk."

Jim tries to ease the tension in Nyota by giving her a brief look attempting to convey, _See what I've been dealing with for the last hour?_ Her eyes have a softer sardonic look then, but there's still that edge of worry.

Moreau gives the same vaguely irritating greetings to Scotty and Bones; around them are several other members of the security team, suggesting along with the absence of Jill and Alel that Gene quickly organized this as more of a tactical meeting.

"Miss Moreau," Jim starts in, thinking that this introduction might take her a little off guard. "We might start with you telling the others why it was you were only willing to speak to me about this issue first."

She rises visibly to making him see she isn't at all out of water for being pushed to explain herself. She makes an innocent little hum of noise, then handles the room with, "Well, I think it would be best to first explain what it was I had to tell you about. How many of you are familiar with the existence of the medical base known as Third House?"

It's still and silent all around the table; when Bones clasps his hands on the table in a shifting motion there's a deep sort of stilling in his eyes, like he's settling on the peak of an inner fight becoming more palpable. Jim turns into him in a bit of surprise.

"I came across a lot of stuff about it when I was researching what to do about..." Bones means Jill, but for some reason isn't inclined to say her name. "There are several lab vessels out there run by Imperial Starfleet, and something like nine of them are participants in slave breeding...but this is the big one. It's where most of their research is conducted, it's where most of the data that exists on the genetic alterations is developed; not only that, but it's the central hub where any of that information can even be attained."

"That's all correct, Doctor," Moreau says. "And all of that is part of the reason why we're going to infiltrate it and then blow it up."

Bones has to talk over a few responses, scoffing and saying, "Well, you'd have to find it first. Trust me, if we had a chance in hell of even hacking that place I would have been nagging Jim to try to get us there almost as soon as we were back in space. But it's constantly moving. And the shielding technology..."

"Of course, you've done the homework. But this is why the attack has to be at a very specific time. We're lucky enough to have attained actual coordinates of where this station is going to be ten days from now; we probably wouldn't get another chance to hit this place in a few lifetimes, so if we want to make a huge dent on what I'm sure you all would consider the most detestable institution the fleet has to offer, we need to do it now. And the reason that I didn't tell you this, or my name before, my lovely friend Gene..." The acridness in her voice seems to wind up a couple people at the table. "Is because you Romulans are so damn paranoid I didn't know if you trusted Kirk farther than a few throws, and I had no idea if you would even tell him about the plan if you decided I was trying to lead you all into a trap. But if I teased you enough with the mere possibility that I was just a ticking bomb straight from ISF, you'd have to put me face to face with Kirk just to see what it would drum up."

"How do you even know about the location?" Nyota steadily interjects.

"I actually didn't get the chance to tell Kirk this." 

"You implied you've got an informant," he offers, then says to everyone else, "I'm not sure I buy it."

"Why? For being what's supposed to be our home planet's gallant little warriors, they're actually pretty devoid of strong loyalties. It's just a matter of finding somebody you already have a reason to think will be easy to buy."

Jim is admittedly curious now, his brow furrowing down. He looks more directly at Moreau in question.

She points out in a silky tone, "You realize Winona Kirk is still active?" 

Hearing the name nags his breathing a little. "And you...bought whatever information she's been giving you, I assume, without telling her I'm not really her son?"

"She may think that you've gone right off the deep end," Moreau says lightly, "but it doesn't make a difference. You're still her little boy."

"And..." The agitation only rises the more he thinks about it. "You made her think you were offering me protection rather than an idea about a mission that could very well guarantee me and my _cute little crew_ as good as dead."

Moreau settles in her chair, making a face. "That's a little over-dramatic, don't you think?"

"If _you_ can buy information from Starfleet, who's to say that an organized, militia-sized gang of bounty hunters couldn't?" The realization pricks up around the room; Scotty mutters a curse. "How hard could it possibly be for them to get info from somebody who would probably love to see me in a noose? This would be the first time _we've_ gotten out these kinds of guns but this attack would fit the profile the propaganda has been quick to assign to us, thanks to your Commander Spock, to a T. All it would take is one of them saying, 'How would you like some extra security hanging out a few clicks from your lab? All you have to do is tell us where it is.' Please, _Lieutenant_ , can we go past the part where you pretend not to have considered this?" he interrupts just as she's pertly trying to interject.

Moreau goes for, "You have put the safety of your crew on the line for the sake of helping people many times before..."

"Not like this. It could be suicide. Anyhow, our very presence there could end up jeopardizing the purpose of the attack. If we plan on blowing that thing up with nobody inside of it we're going to need some serious organization, not something that could turn into a shootout clusterfuck at the drop of a hat. We're lucky if this colony has thirty people trained for battle, and that's not enough."

"Of course there's back-up," Moreau says steadily. She told him some of this before and is patiently aware he's making sure she can hold her case in front of everyone else. "We've got people."

"That's nothing without good tactics," Jim says. Before he didn't ask: "Where the hell are we even gonna get a schematic?"

"Spock. He'll mind meld with a member of personnel—"

"Spock's gonna be with us? Are you hundred percent on that?" There's a hesitation in her answer, so he shakes his head and interrupts, "And that doesn't help everyone else know what they're doing."

"We'll have a couple Nyroks with us," Moreau says. When she realizes he doesn't understand, she sighs. "They can project telepathically? I thought you realized this. After all, it's the whole reason Spock sought them out."

A few glances lock together around the room. "What do you mean, 'project'?" Bones asks.

"Initially, he told me, he didn't know if he could even try to subvert the Empire because he needed everyone to understand this exact same _vision_ he had." With what little motion Moreau can give with her hands, she spreads them out in a sort of flowering gesture. "He thought that with Vulcan destroyed, there was no hope, but then he sought out other telepathic species and he found that if he could meld with one Nyrok, that guy could go on to hold a meeting with a hundred others and project the most complicated concept into the others' minds. Maybe a slightly diluted version of it, less emotional. But the right idea."

"...What 'emotional idea' did he show them?" Jim asks, a little dubious.

Her focus is split open by surprise at him having to ask. "Come on, it was you he melded with. It's not just an idea; it's your entire world, as far as he was able to understand it."

Suddenly Jim can feel the eyes from all around the room resting on him. "Oh."

"You melded with the commander?" Gene mutters.

"Didn't exactly give the okay; I was passed out after he neck-pinched me." Jim straightens back up from his self-conscious slump, on Moreau again. "Anyway, while we're working out this far from bulletproof plan, I can't help pointing out that even if everything else goes off without a hitch, we have no way of knowing how the prisoners are going to behave. We're lucky when a slave we try to pick up from a planet decides they trust James T. Kirk; in these places, these people may not even know who the hell I am."

"I wouldn't be so sure," Gene says. "I was born in a place like this. Networks thrive...Information gets around slowly, but it does get around. Of course, you _mat'chkai_ do need to worry about the fact that if the battle gets at all panicked, they're not really going to be able to tell much of a difference between the humans that are helping and the ones they need to get past."

"We're used to worrying about that," Nyota says.

"I'm willing to work with you, Kirk, and all the tactical people of this colony to draft out an idea of how many people we need," Moreau says after a brief but heavy moment. "I'm even less willing than you are to go on a suicide mission, and I'm not willing to take an army in if it's not a big enough number. Which means we're going to have to decide just by way of the volunteer count. Does anyone object to this?"

After a few seconds of silence Gene says, "Okay. No promises from anyone, let's just get Larade and her boys in here to talk about what kind of number we're looking at, early tomorrow. Are we adjourned?"

The crowd is still untangling at a drowsy speed when Jim, after learning that security still wants her in custody for the duration of her time at the colony, helps one of the younger Romulans on the security team walk Moreau back to the cells. The guard was told absently by Gene that they can "skip the bracelets this time," and she walks along at a park stroll with her hands in her pockets.

"There's something I wanted to ask you."

"Mm?" She gives an attentive little blink in his direction. It's the first moment she really looks tired.

"...Exactly how close were you and Kirk?"

His one loose memory of Moreau from aboard the _ISS Enterprise_ was from one of the first nights they were there: She had access to his quarters and he'd been in some sulking stupor over something as vaguely off-putting as the other Kirk's book collection when she took him by surprise by walking right in. He was trying to gather up some assumption about her that would help him figure out how to get her to walk back out, and in only a couple seconds the look of slight alarm obviously meant something different to her than what it really was. She stared back at him, seeming to absorb this coldness where he couldn't give her any familiarity, and then took on a defensive sigh of resignation. Accepting a misplaced conclusion to some earlier fight maybe, she walked right back out without saying a word, and he almost immediately forgot her, though—and it was strange that this memory came to him only through the connection to the other, since there was a time Jim would have claimed he never forgot a name from a crew file—he _had_ recognized her, from the Marlena Moreau who'd come up in a memo about two recent transfers to the _USS_ back home, only a few days before he left that ship for the last time.

The moment the night before when he realized she was that woman was strange, like the difference between what he'd seen during that first encounter and the way she has to be handled now gave him no definition in what to expect from her. Maybe it's just something about the way she looks at him: evoking something deeply personal on her end, but distant, like the fleeting one-sided amity that belongs through the sight of a sniper rifle.

In response to the question, she tilts up an eyebrow. "Come on, I'm sure you've already figured that out."

"You were the captain's woman, naturally—Come to think of it, maybe you still are—"

"Spock's no captain now. He's no commander either, and yet I've noticed a few of you refer to him that way."

He doesn't bother explaining how the rank epithets are easier for them. "I was just wondering if he trusted you enough that maybe you might have had access to any of his personal files. And if so, if there was any chance that information could still be in the ISF database somewhere."

"No, not James. He could be an extremely private person...Why?" Somehow she's fallen into walking ahead of him just a little, but she dwells back, slowing down in her realization. "Don't tell me: The ionic rippling trick?"

A little chagrined, he looks at his boots for a moment.

"Oh, hon. Surely you've realized he never figured it out. He would have bragged about it up and down...Hell, more than that. With that kind of technology, he could put the entire Empire under his thumb." She shakes her head. "The accidental Holy Grail of the Kirk family. I can't imagine how much it must have driven his father crazy; I read some old article where George said it was like the hand of a god just reached into his brain, gave him the knowledge, and then yanked it back out right after Nero was staved off for the time. And he couldn't even use the computer systems to recall the data because the ship had to go on energy conservation to get home and then everything was fried; he had to start over from scratch and it never worked out. And yeah, I know, James stole all his notes, but...I think if there was any way in hell he could have finished what was started, he wouldn't have given up."

Another moment runs by as they turn a corner to steer her far out of the way of a prayer group. 

"And I'm not," Moreau says.

"...What?"

"I'm not his woman," she says. "At least...we're not close."

Perplexed by this disclosure, he amends, "Okay."

"It's just...I'm not sure how much I completely disagree with you about him. It's the tenacity of him that's so intriguing I just can't look away...Do you know he doesn't think he'll even live to see how far his plans are supposed to culminate?"

Jim blinks in surprise.

"Seriously. But there's something about the way he thinks about it...it makes me not want to be in his noggin for too long. It's true, what I said about his whole vision; it's all because of something he saw in your head. And he changed so immediately, but if you're anywhere close to him you realize it's just this systematic reassignment of priorities. I wonder why he's after preserving life if he doesn't love it." Her tongue licks along her teeth as she has some self-berating thought. "In a way that's what I miss the most about James, you know. His fear."

Something brushes at him and makes him look harder at her while she speaks; a curiosity. "You ever think about whether you'd take him back?"

She turns a look on him, slowly.

"Just, hypothetically, if James Kirk found his way back into this universe somehow..."

She scoffs. "He can't."

"But if he did. If you got the chance."

Her look turns defensive. "That's not an interview question I get every day."

"Look, you don't have to answer."

"How could I possibly imagine something like that?" Her usually serene expression cracks into some fragile amusement at the mundane sentimentality, before that glassy distant thing is forced into irritation. "We weren't exactly doing well as a... _couple_ , back before he went missing, which you seem to have worked out. So I don't know how it would go." 

Jim is frowning in the direction of someone's flashlight flickering off behind a tent wall; a homey giggle carries from behind a different one. He's a little surprised when Moreau continues.

"The answer is that I think about it," she declares. "I guess that doesn't recommend me very well to you, does it?"

Jim rests his hands into his pockets, sighing in thought. "You think he's making a lot of trouble back at my home? If he made it, that is."

"Jesus, I don't know." She gives him a speculative glance. "Did you ask about his notes cause you thought you might gave better luck yourself?"

He shakes his head in dull ruefulness, not even sure if she knows what she's asking; the other possible uses for such a technology are all too theoretical, and maybe not very interesting to someone like her. "Not really. But I had to ask."

They're just outside the brig now; she gives him a last hesitation, seeming to back out of something she thought about saying. "Goodnight," she says with a hard glint in her eye, and walks ahead of the guard.

 

Nyota has to wake him up when they're close to being late for the meeting. This one is surveyed at the edges by Alel and a couple others who aren't prospective volunteers. This apparently includes Jill, to Jim's surprise. In general it's said that she prefers making weapons over using them, but she's a good shot and ripe for the cause. He doesn't have the nerve to ask her about it; there's a good stack of trust between them but she tends to get prickly when she has to look at it.

When Jim is taking a seat the little legion of half a dozen Klingons are already there in an obedient gaggle around Larade, who is slinging an arm around one of her teenage soldiers to tease him about showing up in his fine vambraces as if this were some ceremonial affair. Larade is a presence to get used to: just easygoing enough to get comfortable with before you realize or remember that she's scary as fuck. She and Gene have the best rapport between a Romulan and a Klingon Jim has ever witnessed but that's barely saying anything; she considers security and enforcement tasks to be light lifting and therefore not worth her time and only pulls her back-up when the circumstances sound like fun. Naturally Gene is a little annoyed when the Klingons show up all hot and bothered about only knowing they had a prisoner around since last night.

"You know, I would have brought you over to Moreau but I wouldn't want our guests getting the idea we have no concept of hygiene down here," Gene deadpans while he's getting into his notes.

"From what I hear, your idea of interrogating a prisoner is to tickle her with a feather," Larade returns, "so I think she's got a pretty good idea of who isn't willing to get their hands dirty."

Gene is struck into a sulk, but at that moment Moreau is being led in right over Larade's shoulder and says, "Oh, give him a passing grade. I was trained to stand up against everything, but we never thought of feathers." Jim feels a surreal push in the air over her reflexive peacemaking among the several parties. The comment certainly earns her some immediate respect from the more hard-natured members of the congregation. The cuffs are back on but no one protests to her getting them off for the duration of the meeting, and after her hands are freed she pauses to take off her jacket, revealing a simple t-shirt that's dark enough in color to look clean, before sitting down.

There's an initial storm of disagreement over who should even be present, since Larade is of the opinion that only people who intend to consider the fight have any business giving advice. The fact that this is even a debate sets some mystery on the presence of some people standing or sitting around the table; one of Larade's guys is the first to point at the wall. "What about Prince over there, Gene?"

"Alel's got nothing to do with a vote," Gene says (his only hesitation being the "I'm the only one who can call him that, asshole" that Jim can practically read in a thought bubble over his head). Alel comes over closer to him, but doesn't seem inclined to say anything. "He can shoot, but he has no training."

"Be that as it may," Larade says in a mocking show of delicacy, "we're going to be dealing with a few recently acquired prisoners, and he comes from some high position in Romulan society, right?"

"Yeah, once upon a time," Gene says with a heavily dubious gesture. "You think anybody's gonna give a fuck? It's not like anyone at the Knot recognized who he was..."

"I think what she means," Moreau cuts in, "is that he's what a fully cultured Romulan will immediately spot as respectably full-blooded. Even I could tell where he's from just when he walked in here a few minutes ago: He's lucky enough to not have a neck brand, his accent is very upper-class...I don't think he could hide his breeding if he tried."

"And they'll assume the worst he's had to be is a kitchen nape and immediately hate him."

"I think they'll assume whatever is comforting to them. They'll respond to the familiar with immediate trust, and that's what we need, not just a Starfleet linguistics expert who will be able to translate 'Go that way.'"

"We're talking about a pretty negligible percentage, though," Bones says in impatience. "The attempts to breed out the superior strength has been more successful with Romulans than with any other species, but there will definitely be other types of captives and only a few of them will have been shipped from home planets. Anyhow, can't you tell he's too young?...Don't look at me like that, Gene, you're younger than I was when I entered med school."

"Who said anything about me voting on?" Gene asks, the rhetoric an obvious evasion from the protest he doesn't want to hear from them.

"What, the head cop isn't gonna put in?" Larade interrupts.

"I think Gene's good for this type of thing, so we need him right now," Jim levels, ignoring Larade, "and generally I'm going to suggest that anyone who could be of help be allowed in on the discussion; after all, they could always change their mind and throw back in if we end up meeting the minimum for volunteers." 

The room folds into a few side debates, and Jim looks sternly at Gene. "Have to say I agree with Bones. Aren't you barely, like, drinking age? You're a kid, and Alel's even younger. And how hard is Jill gonna kick your ass if you don't sit this one out?"

"Twenty-year-old Terrans are young, maybe," Gene grunts, but there's an exasperated sigh from Alel next to him that makes him not push on it.

Larade proves to at least be very rational about strategy, and what's painstaking about the debating that follows is nothing Jim hasn't been used to slogging through since he had to do group simulations in school. But gradually the thought process gets fuzzier under the weight of his increasing realization that there are too many things that could go wrong, no matter how high their numbers are. He voices every single concern that he thinks they could do a damn thing about; the problems he doesn't bring up yet he can see reflected in some of the other eyes around the table. Everybody seems to feel slightly different about what they're proposing to do. He keeps catching grim smirks from Nyota, but she's managing to be exceptionally unreadable on this one.

The security team has to go deal with a dispute next to the school, giving them all a brief break. Jim runs to get a sandwich and comes back to find the room crowded with people awaiting the final news; he quickly gives up on sitting close to the same people as before and uses this to his advantage, standing in-between Gene and Larade and trying to smooth over their disagreements. About an hour after the meeting resumes they've finally got their number.

At the word "adjourned" the crowds start to unwind out of the tent, but Jim stands up tall and looks around, holding up three fingers and then waving in the direction of the least busy corner of the tent. The signal reels in Nyota and Bones and Scotty. They stand in an informal but sturdy way in their small circle, and Bones is starting to ask Jim a question when he quickly shushes him.

"Okay, sorry, look..." Jim swallows, looking every one of them in the eye for a second. In cringing hesitation he rips off, "I don't think that we should talk about which way we're going on this."

Nyota's eyes flick between him and the others. "Why?"

"Well, I'm not going to tell you not to talk to each other. I guess what I mean is don't talk to me." Looking around again and nodding, he says, "I've been saying for two years now, right, that I am not the captain anymore, but the fact is...with the four of us working the way that we work, even when I say that, I end up making decisions for other people anyway. It's hard when we've always been in it together, but this one...if we're all in it or out of it after the initial tally, fine, but up until then..."

Bones opens his mouth, but then he shuts it and lets out a sigh.

His voice fights against the stalling somewhere in his diaphragm. "It's that question that we never actually asked, you know. Are we going to be able to stop, are we going to say we did enough and lie down for good, or are we willing to fight for these people until we die? I'm not saying we'll probably die on this one, but...if not this one, it could be the next thing or the next, and I'm telling all of you, if by some chance in hell you're not scared, get scared, and it's okay if you decide you don't want to keep this up. I need to know for sure that that's not my decision this time."

There's a thick acceptance settling on the others' faces; finally Scotty mumbles, "Of all the days for you to start getting humble, Jim." It's only a consolation; they all know things started changing a long time ago.

"Oh, and also." He tries to smile but it's a weak one as he speaks with the shaky laughter of earnestness. "I guess it's a little late for the team-building speech. I know I can't pretend I've always been strong enough through all of this for everyone else, but...I'd rather be scared shitless with the rest of you than fine all by myself, so...I'm just sorry if I was never—"

Before he has to try to articulate, Bones is pulling him in with an arm drawing up to his shoulder, giving it a squeeze, and he knows he doesn't have to say anything. Nyota looks so wrecked with something he almost wants to take back everything.

"Okay," he finally says, in the relieved humor after awkward emotion. "We'll talk after the volunteer count; until then it's bad jokes and the weather for me."

 

Nyota keeps an eye on Leonard, not sure what kind of tells she's really looking for, but she swears he was heavier in the shoulders than any of them before Jim's little meeting even occurred. He catches her staring at him over the dinner table and looks only lazily confused, ends up giving her a rueful little smile she can't bring herself to return. 

"What's on your mind?" he asks, turning a cracker over his knuckles while his other hand stirs up his soup. His eyes seem to flick in some indication at her notes from the tactical meeting sitting in front of her. Scotty is off with Jill somewhere and Jim is talking god knows what with Charlie and Gene on the other side of the mess.

"I'd have no idea where to start," she says.

"He didn't tell us what to do," Leonard finally grunts after a considering moment. "But to be honest I'm not too eager to get into it with anyone else."

She can feel herself furrowing down in worry; he cocks his eyebrow.

"I'm an alright sounding board though, if you want to talk."

"Why?" she asks, in hazy reluctance, "I mean why don't you want to talk about it? Are you thinking...? Nevermind, Leonard, I'm sorry."

He's setting his food away, and now he looks at her for a long time. "What's wrong?"

"What's _wrong_? Is it your reasons you don't want to talk about?"

There's a give in his expression, just the tiniest jolt of surprise. "I just asked if you wanted to talk to me, hon."

"It just seems unlike you not to talk back, that's all." There's a burn of obvious agitation in her voice and she's not sure how it got there.

His arms crossed in front of him, he looks like he hates this whole puzzle so hard he could get mad at anything. "So ask me."

Something about the disarming just bothers her somewhere in her chest. She gets up from the table, shaking her head.

 

She and Jim attempt to have something like a quiet night in; back at their bunk he's reading something when she comes in from brushing her teeth and ends up standing warily at the entrance after fastening a couple of the tent catches behind her. When he finally looks up at her it's with a heavy sigh. He puts his PADD down.

"Spill it."

Caught off guard, she goes stiff.

"Something's messing with your head," Jim says. "What's going on?"

Her thoughts need a moment to spool up, and when she ends up talking her voice sounds far more uneasy than she expected it to. "It's just that I know what you're doing, and you're right, and the thing is I've always been okay at putting my life on the line when I have to. But I guess I've always been a little better at it when I'm being _ordered_ to do it, and I'm not sure if this is something I know how to do, Jim, I..."

He starts to get up from the bed, his expression darkening.

"I know I can't expect you to make all the choices, but it's not without reason that sometimes you do end up making them. And I just feel like you're starting to get so _tired_ again, and you're going to leave us hanging in the dark like..."

His arms come around her. She holds him tight, feeling him trying to calm down as firmly as she is. "It won't be like that. I told you I wasn't going to get that way again," he mutters into her hair.

"I shouldn't even talk like that. You shouldn't have to promise me that." Her words and her hands are patting him nervously away.

"And we should be fanning ourselves on some getaway spot." Jim is looking closely at her, maintaining a loose hold at her waist. "Are you diverting? You're gonna make me leave it alone?"

She takes a long breath in and out. "I don't know anything for sure, and even if I did I probably shouldn't tell you."

She can see the mathematically precise guessing game flitting through his mind, and she realizes she's not going to carry this alone. It would just be driving both of them crazy if she did.

"I think something's wrong with Jill."

A blank depth takes over his face and he paces back away from her a few steps, turning fully around in the process as he scratches at his hair. "You think or you know?" 

She's busy considering if there could be any way she's wrong.

" _Nyota_ ," he pleads.

"I don't know what else it could be," she says. "But before the initial meeting, just with us and the Romulans, I saw Leonard and Jill having some kind of fight."

"It could have just been a fight," he suggests, but the wheels in his head are obviously not reassuring him.

"They definitely thought they wouldn't be seen. It was quiet. And it didn't look like there was any problem between them that night, except for then. They're _hiding_ something."

"How the hell could something be wrong with her again?" Jim demands in empty frustration. "That heart transplant..."

"Plenty can go wrong with transplants, Jim. Keep your voice down."

"She seems more than fine. All the _time_."

"She's had a lot of practice her entire life at acting like everything's fine." Nyota only realizes it then. "And so have her friends."

"You think that Gene and...?" 

"Who can tell? I mean, none of them have seemed very sound this week but I figured it was all about Moreau."

At the card table, even, there was something a little too forced. After one too many post-Ludo evenings of partying on _Ulysses_ , they've become immune to thinking too hard about the most somber elephants in the room, to the point that they've forgotten what it is to have a good time without them around; now they may have missed when the tension was something new. But no amount of contemplation on how unhappy or distracted any of the Romulans have been seeming would be likely to get her or Jim anywhere closer to the truth; the others have been at this kind of denial their entire lives.

"It adds up," Jim sadly says after a moment of consideration. "I have no idea how long Bones can have known..."

"Surely not longer than when we landed?"

"I don't think it's likely, but you never know. You know what he's like, total loose canon with his opinions, but he actually takes patient confidentiality pretty seriously when he's able to, even these days."

"...Sometimes with the exception of when he thinks anything can be done about it."

"Nyota, we can't."

"Are you _kidding_ me?"

"Do you know how hard he worked to get Jill to trust him as her doctor? God knows it's probably her strong and silent crap that's the reason she's keeping this locked down, but there's the explanation for the bickering right there."

"He isn't just her doctor, he's a _friend_ , and he knows that." Now she has to remind herself to keep it down. "He's got several reasons to be dying to take this place, but...What if there's something at the base that can help her?"

For a few seconds Jim shuts his eyes and takes one or two deep breaths. Then he shakes his head and slowly goes back over to the bunk and tosses himself into bed in a sigh. She gets in after him, holding him from behind as his back curves into her.

"I don't want to know any of this," he says after a long moment. "I can't talk about this with you. I can't _think_ about this with you, and now I've gotta know it could be just as hard...on Scotty, for fuck sakes, if we say no, as it could be on all of us to say yes. How the hell am I supposed to... _retain objectivity_ when referring to all of you as my 'crew' feels like kind of a joke. We're all we've got. It's practically all I can think about."

She bites her lip and rubs at his shoulders, not knowing what to say to him or to herself. "We've done a lot, Jim. We've helped so many people..."

"And we'll just tell that to all the others who are going to wonder why Kirk dropped off the map?"

"You're worth the highest bounty in the whole quadrant; they're not going to need an explanation."

"Still...I just have this feeling it's not time to give up just yet." 

She feels the bitter, distant contemplation tensing through his muscles as she lies behind him. After a few minutes of their nearest neighbor snoring lightly and the faint echoes of boots skidding on the polished central floor, Jim speaks again. 

"Spock would tell me what to do." His voice is faint, almost with caution, and so sad that she stops breathing in the sudden stillness between them. "He'd have his...calculations and probabilities. He'd iron it all out."

Nyota cannot remember the last time either of them mentioned Spock by name. They allude to him, take subtle measures of supporting each other in the moments when his absence is undeniably in their thoughts, but never like this. The utterance feels somehow reckless and makes her heart tighten to a sharp ache, with just the feel of having it in the air, with the realization of how exhausted Jim must be. The name is an admission that he wants or needs the time they never fully took to mourn, and something about this coming from his direction first feels like the sway of some oncoming torrent.

Jim's voice is cracked low with the heavy afterthought: "Do you think he's okay?"

For a second she thinks she won't be able to speak. "Of course he's okay," she whispers into his shoulder. "He always is."

They lie in silence for another moment. Then Jim complains in heavy realization, "And to think if we go through all this bullshit, we've still got to worry about Moreau knowing about the colony's location."

"...Actually," she says, "that reminds me I have something I need to do."

His head shifts like he wants to finally twist around and look at her. "What?"

She squeezes his shoulder, snugly inches in to kiss him on the neck. "Get some sleep. You need it."

Now he does turn around, one brow mildly cocked in confusion. He seems to mean to kiss her a quick chaste goodbye but her mouth insists it's something else, her hand grabbing at his shirt below the collar as if to hold the feel of his heartbeat in her fist. "Don't take too long," he mutters, sounding a little unsteady still, when she finally pulls away.

 

She slows in reluctance and crouches down just outside the attachment of tarps set up just a little too low for walking in, confirming that someone's still awake by the lamplight coming from inside the fort. The canvas isn't completely closed so she tries to unobtrusively peek in, then notices Gene sitting on the floor close to the double bunk. There's an idle frown on his face as he seems to be reading something sitting by his lap. She leans back out and knocks her fist on the floor just inside the entrance.

Immediately she hears him moving and in a few seconds the flaps part to reveal his pout that softens into surprise at seeing she's the one there.

"Uh-oh," he drawls. "Come in a sec."

With a rueful smile she follows him into the cozy sleeping quarters where he has a couple candles lit on top of an old chest. She now sees Madda fast asleep and sprawled on the bottom bunk curled into Alel, whose eyelids are flickering in half-sleep while he listens to something on a pair of headphones. Looking at the floor, she realizes Gene wasn't trying to read anything heavier than some set of ancient picture books preserved in laminate.

"Oh my god," she whispers when she gets a closer look. "Where did you get comics?"

Gene's face lights up easily. "Oh, Anik lends them out. He stole them from somewhere. They're actually banned because, look..."

Upon closer inspection, she can see that these issues had to come out during Earth's 1960's, if not earlier, and that they are plain and simple anti-Empire propaganda from when there were still competing national entities on Terra. "Holy shit," she hisses in excitement at the image of a villainous sword-wielding creature bearing on the chest of his costume what is now the recognizable daggered planet of the Terran Empire.

"I know, right?" 

"Gene, these are amazing. And they're so _old_. God, if I could only get into an encyclopedia and see what kind of stuff this artist did, back home..." Her thoughts trail off, and then there's an awkward sobering like they just caught themselves laughing at a funeral or something.

"Anyway, you'd be surprised what's still hanging around. I'm not sure the people who collect them are necessarily as antipatriotic as you are, but..." He shrugs, and a brief moment goes by. "What can I help you with?"

She gives him a heavy look, not sure if he might have some idea of the answer. She says simply, still keeping her voice at barely above a whisper, "'M.'"

Gene goes into a thoughtful look, then checks the chronometer. "Give me a minute."

When he reaches over to the head of the bunk she expects him to explain more of what's going on, but all he does is hook his finger around one of Alel's, getting back a brief tightening grasp on his hand and then patting him on the arm as he gets up. Madda yawns and turns, pulling her blanket up higher in the squeeze of a fist, and Gene pushes a couple curls out of her face. Then he slowly, quietly slips his tactical belt out from under one of the pillows.

"Is this anything you wanna tell me about?" he asks once they're well out of hearing range of anyone sleeping.

"I don't see why I shouldn't, but I'd rather wait till afterwards."

Gene caught Madda's yawns and is shaking himself out of one as he stops to fish into his locker for his extra set of brig keys. 

"You know, I always thought Romulans and Vulcans didn't yawn?"

"Came as a shock to me, when I first heard it," he says with a crooking mouth. "It's a spay thing, I guess. One of those human traits we got from the bottom of the test tube. Not one that bothers me, though. You need me there? With Moreau?"

"Does she trust you at all?" she asks dubiously.

Something swells of understatement in his expression when he shrugs and says, "I wouldn't think so."

"I'd be fine with you sitting in hearing range, if that's possible. I think it might be best if she feels like we're alone."

"Okay."

When he lets her in, Moreau's not alone in the brig chambers, and Nyota's grateful she doesn't even have to ask him to get the other security members to clear out for a little bit. The one long table set up outside of the cells is currently hosting an array of objects, the huge duffel bag that some of them presumably came from discarded next to one of the legs. There are a lot of weapons, but several other types of materials as well; Nyota imagines it as effective survival gear for an away mission with some sentimental extras thrown in. She finds herself examining one thing after the next until her stroll down the length of the table ends at something she recognizes instantly as a branding phaser. She picks it up by the long handle, forgetting the rest of the room. The crude 'X' on the end of the metal twists a flicker off the yellow lamplight. She's a little startled when Moreau speaks.

"Do you forget that it's there?" she asks. Nyota hears her sliding up from where she was sitting and taking a couple steps closer to the crudely welded bars. 

"I can't afford to forget that it's there," Nyota answers, setting the phaser down. "Disguises are hard enough without having to cover up my neck all the time." Moreau has sidled up to lean in on the bars at her shoulders, setting her head on one of them in calm expectation. Nyota's eyes meet hers and then look back down. She asks, "What is all this?"

"They're negotiating use of some of the goods I brought in. I suppose I should take it as a good sign they haven't considered all my stuff permanently confiscated."

"This is all yours?" She gives another look along the table. "Did you think the branding iron would be nice for decorating cookies?"

Moreau has a look of exasperated innocence. "It can be up-cycled into one of many tools. Ask your engineer what he could do with it."

"Do you have any idea if they checked these for tracking devices?" In the next second, Nyota wants to add "Why am I asking _you_?"

"A tracking device might have been a good idea, but if they looked they wouldn't have found one. I don't think Spock is wasting our resources on things like that anymore. He was pretty disappointed when you guys dismantled that one he planted on you last year."

"I'm sure he was," Nyota replies. She's walking up to the cell with her arms crossed, keeping her face frozen against Moreau's attempts at levity. Finally she asks, "Do you enjoy scaring us?"

Moreau tilts her face like a confused puppy. "Why would you ask a thing like that?"

"Do you enjoy screwing around with us, making us think that the safety of this colony is a total joke, because you were able to hitchhike right in?"

Moreau is landing into the realization that this was Nyota's whole objective in coming here. She considers her with a scoff. "Look, I told your captain that Spock doesn't know what I know, and I also told him I don't know how else to try to make you believe it. So what do you want?"

Nyota bites her lip in thought for a couple seconds before saying, "I know that there's no surefire way I can get you to tell me the truth, or of making sure I have any real reason to believe you, even if this mission doesn't turn out to be some elaborate trap; for the moment I do find it easy to believe that the commander doesn't know where the colony is, but whether you will tell him about it in the future is up in the air, and none of us are feeling too good about that."

Uninterested, Moreau says, "It's a real pickle."

"The one thing that reassures me is that I'm sure he doesn't really need your loyalty. If you told him you weren't able to give him some information he wanted out of plain and simple fear for your own safety, I'm sure he'd understand." Predictably, Moreau has a look of astonished cynicism, but Nyota interrupts her. "I'm not threatening you, no. I'm not even asking you to tell me anything or do anything. I'm just letting you know that you might want to consider that you need the colony to be secure because you might want to live here some day."

Moreau considers this for a moment with little inspiration. "You're kidding."

"Tell me then, what's the plan? Do you have a safe place to settle down once you've reached the end of your part in the whole scheme? Have you even thought that far ahead?"

"No." She shakes her head. "I assume that he has plans for when that day comes."

"You're lying. I heard that you've been saying he doesn't believe he'll live to see this universe come to be what he wants it to be. I'm sure you've considered that he isn't just saying that because of how long it will take?"

"Of course that's what he means. You think this whole coup is something that can be done overnight?"

"No. But it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the commander isn't arrogant enough to think that he'll somehow manage to duck all the fire that's headed his way. And what's going to happen to you then? What about when you're seen somewhere and they figure out you're a defector and there's a bounty on your head? You're either going to have to fight this war to your death, or find somewhere to hide. And as far as I know, there isn't even a dream of somewhere else this solid for anyone like you or me to go to. So I'm not telling you or asking you to do anything except consider that you might not want to sell us out, for your own good."

Moreau paces in a small circle for a bit, hands resting on the back of her hips. Her jaw tensing in an almost gnawing motion, she looks back over at Nyota. "What makes you sure I'm not willing to fight it to the end?"

"Why are you even with him?"

She cracks into a small snigger, deflecting, "Feeling jealous at all about the old flame?"

"I don't care if or why you're screwing him. Why are you on his side?"

She scratches at the back of her neck, grunting up at the ceiling. "It's...a _huge_ change he's trying to bring about. Just seeing the way it moves in his head, I don't know...it's intoxicating. Being at the center of all of it."

"Only, possibly you misread what kind of power he really has." Nyota waits for some opposition before saying, "Maybe you didn't realize that he was willing to be a casualty. You saw that there was something big coming and you threw down with the new captain, because it's your reflex to think that's where all the agency is. And now that you realize you're in anything but safe company, you've taken to convincing yourself that he'll figure out the self-preservation thing somewhere down the line. But you're afraid."

Moreau takes in a sniff of the air. "You think you know everything about me?"

"I know what a death wish looks like and you haven't got it. And nobody in your position who doesn't want to die could possibly be doing just fine." She swallows, her eyes falling to one of the bars. "...I know I'm not."

When she walks out to where Gene is waiting at the threshold to the brig compartment, he frowns at her in surprise before locking the door and giving a quick status report on his comm. She grabbed the branding phaser on her way out and is idly banging it against her thigh.

"You better not be about to tell me there's no way you'd ever let her live here, because I'm thinking that's the only card we have."

"Don't worry too much about it," is all he says on the subject. He's shaking his head at her nerve, but the slightly awestruck look is still on his face and beginning to fall to something softer. "Hey, is that true? That stuff she implied about you and the other Spock?"

Twice in a night. "What would she know?"

"But is she right?"

"Gene," she says in warning.

He pouts, persisting anyway with an almost childish curiosity. "Was it serious?"

She sighs at him, more stern this time.

"Sorry, it's just..." His eyes flick to the floor in hesitation. "Do you miss him?"

"Yes," she says evenly. "Now drop it."

He lags behind a little when she bluntly walks on back toward the tactical shed. He sits down close by when she's trying to figure out where she should store the phaser. After a long moment he says, "I just feel like there are so many things a lot of us don't know about each other."

No longer giving him any coldness, she casts a look of mild doubt. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I've never felt like it mattered that much to you before."

"It's just a reflex. Back at the Knot it was, I mean, you didn't tell anybody about your past there, not unless they were practically your family." He frowns, shrugs. "I think a lot of us are used to assuming the worst about the stuff people won't talk about."

She considers that with a slight grimace. "...What are you thinking about, Gene? You don't have to wrap it up for me."

"Nothing."

"Fine," she accepts, patiently. 

"I don't know, I guess I'm just trying to figure out...if it could ever work out, between two people who are so different." Gene rests his crossed arms down on his knees, looking to the floor again.

"Like?"

"Like, you know, Jill and Scotty. If she actually knew for sure that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with that guy, no matter how long or short that might be, and just be more upfront about it, cause I think we both know she kind of isn't. And I get it; they haven't been through the same things..."

She gives him a considering look. "Is this about being from two different worlds or just different species or something else? Because Jill told me you and Alel couldn't speak more than about five words in the same language when you first met and you still got stupid for each other—"

"I can't believe she told you that." 

She lets loose a short smile that tugs Gene into sharing it, but in a moment he sobers again and sounds more nervous.

"...But you know I've been on the other side of it, right? When somebody can do so much more in the world than you can, and you need them so much you can't even see the way you feel about them under all that need. Like sure, everything's good for a while, everything's happy, but then one day you realize if he comes home late smelling like somebody else you're not going to say a word about it, because if he decided to kick you out you could get killed."

She's never heard more than a sentence at once about Gene's life before the Knot, it seems, and she's a little taken aback. "I'm sorry—I can't pretend to understand—"

"No, it's fine, I'm just trying to make a point, like...What if it was like that, but it was two people who actually should be together, who would be together just fine if everything was different? Or if they trusted each other completely, if one of them didn't depend on the other or anything, and it was still...I don't know. What if they just can't understand each other because one of them will never have as much?"

She waits for him to go on, going through another crate with the instinct that being busy makes him less self-conscious.

"It feels weird to tell you this, but a lot of us here, and pretty much around any slave or ex community...we have this general idea that we love better than humans do. Which, is unfair to someone like you but it's like—"

"It's the only privilege you feel you can have."

"Well, when you put it like that, I guess. And if you think something like that for a really long time and when the entire world makes it so damn easy to think it, sometimes I think...I mean, I can't imagine Alel not being Romulan, right, but if somehow he was the same person, but he was human...would I have ever been able to..." Gene puts his hand over his mouth for a few seconds, fidgets, shakes his head. "I don't know."

She looks at him for what feels like a long time, then asks, "Why are you suddenly getting worried about Scotty and Jill?" 

His look before he averts his eyes from her is no consolation at all. She won't swerve her glance from him, pushing him to stammer a response through a frown: "Nothing...It was just, you know, an example."

She gives a cursory last look at all the storage boxes and lazily settles on stowing the phaser in with the tricorder parts. She claps the dust off her hands and shoves them into the pockets of her cardigan. "So little we all know about each other," she mutters, and then leaves Gene where he's now standing in a heavy slouch.

 

So what happens in half of a week is that Gene, who has been tallying up the pledged volunteers, seeks out Jim after he's eaten in the mess and says, "It looks like it's on you."

"What?" 

"We're one hand short of quota, and you're the only person I haven't asked."

Gene is holding his PADD with the stylus at the ready, being ruefully casual about all this. Jim glares down at it and then shakes his head. "Christ. It had to come down to me in the end."

"It's not that people can't change their minds. I just heard you were kind of on the fence so...I guess I had to ruin your day by letting you know it's kind of a big deal."

"Tell me something I don't know next time," Jim says gruffly, and waves him off. "I don't know yet."

"Final word's tonight."

"Yeah, and I'll know by then."

Gene resigns, anxiously tapping the stylus. "I guess we need to get everything ready just in case anyway. Thanks for nothing."

"Anytime."

It's not until later that he's hit with the implied possibilities of Gene being the only one who's aware of the number. Nyota is off translating for one of the patients in medical when Jill steals right into their tent. Jim is washing off the tension with a few sit-ups and falters back the second he sees her stalling over him.

He pushes himself into sitting with his weight on one hand. "What?"

"I need you to say no."

He stares back for a second. "I thought Gene wasn't gonna tell anybody I'm the last notch."

"You're not the last notch. And he didn't tell me, I looked at his checklist."

He cocks an eyebrow. "So you're a hacker now too?"

She rolls her eyes at the diversion. "His passwords are embarrassingly easy to guess. But I counted the pledges, and it's not one under, it's two under. Which means he's lying for some reason. And that reason is probably that he's thinking about throwing in."

"...He said he wouldn't." The protest sounds weak as soon as it leaves his mouth and he suddenly adds in narrowed agitation, "Isn't anybody upfront about a single damn thing around here?"

"The point is he can't decide. He probably wasn't going to before but he really wants the mission to go over so now he's thinking he'll have to tip the scale. It's bullshit."

In a long sigh, Jim gets up from the blanket on the floor, and his eyes waver over Jill's boots for a good half a minute. He then looks into her eyes for a second. "I don't think I can make you any promises."

He's got the whole outline ready, about how many people could be helped with the knowledge and the medicine that they'll be acquiring, that he knows she wants to protect Gene and protect Scotty, that she's thinking about the types of things they can't afford to think about, all in a way that wouldn't imply she's being selfish. But Jill has never gotten used to expecting anything from anyone, and she's already laid down the begging. She looks dead tired, and she says, "See you at the meeting, then," and leaves before he even has a chance to reply.

He gets up and stands for a long moment with his hands on his hips staring at where she walked out, overwhelmed. Then he paces back, his head staring up to the tapestry, and loudly seethes, " _Fuck it_."

Nyota is in the entryway, staring with fuzzy concern, when he looks back down. 

A confused static charges between them for several seconds. Then Nyota starts into a low snicker.

He says, "It's not funny."

"No," she says, but keeps laughing. She walks into his arms and he smiles sadly into her hair.


	7. Compasses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter count is an approximation, but I'm glad to finally have one.

"I will cut out all the preliminary crap and get right down to it," Gene says. The meeting is a crammed chorus of whispers all around him and he's the only one standing at his end of the table. "We have 49 confirmed volunteers, which is one under bare minimum. Mission is trashed. Take your fights to the gym mat and have a lovely evening."

A couple of the Klingons are already shouting in protest as Gene drops his poker face and shoulders the strap of his pack with a dark sulk setting into his eyes. Next to Jim, Bones is casting a hard look down at the table; Nyota turns with a small flinch against an insult in Klingon roared at someone a few steps away from her, one hand nursing at the headache she complained she woke up with. 

Soon they all push past the small crowds to get back out into the open. Jim sees Jill grab at Gene's elbow and say something into his ear. Gene makes some harsh retort, and then she's following him with a tight pace around the side of a water storage tank. In the next second Scotty appears at Nyota's side looking around drowsily: "Where'd Jill get off to?"

"What was I _supposed_ to do?!" Her voice carries over from behind the tank, a concise angry high among the incoherent buzz of a rising fight where they sound like they're walking farther away. With concern piqued, they start to move in closer.

They lose the sound of them and almost let it go, but then when lingering back the way they came Bones spots them down behind the bleachers, and it's right when Jill cuts out something with a hard push at Gene's chest. Just as it looks like they might be going at each other harder, that's when Bones comes between them, furious and shouting, "What the _hell_ is going on?" They're practically snarling over his shoulders and he pushes Gene back; Jim insistently pulls Jill a few steps to keep them to their own air for a second.

"None of your goddamn business," Jill grumbles. Jim can feel her trembling with anger, and she seems to forget anyone other than Gene pretty quickly and shouts, "It's not my problem you're a fucking liar! Did you even tell Alel? What did you think he was gonna say, after everything he gave up to get here?"

"I was _going to be fine_ ," Gene growls. "What about _you_?"

Something drops out of the atmosphere, Jill's whole body thrumming with sudden new tension. "Don't you _dare_ —"

"We both came from this fucked up place and I have the chance to take it down—you want me to just keep my head down and act like everything's great?" Gene's voice is raspy, shaky and impassioned. In a sudden snap he shouts over her, "They couldn't even bother to put a good heart in your chest and I'm supposed to _sit here_ while you're dying?"

Jill's body bruises against Jim's with the force of her trying to spring violently back to Gene; "Hey, hey, knock it off— _Calm down_ , Jill, we already knew!" he shouts, and she goes lax in shock, steps away from him slowly.

Bones gives Jim a look flaming with alarm: " _What_?"

"I saw you and Jill arguing the other night," Nyota says from right next to him. "I didn't know what else to think."

Bones processes that, then says, "Scotty...?"

They all go silent around the hard weight of Scotty and Jill's eyes locked on each other, and Jim is struck by the realization that his unconscious assumption was wrong all along. He thought all this time, surely Scotty knew or suspected something, but he's never seen him look like this. 

He'll tell himself it was about knowing for sure what he could only speculate before, that the factors shifted irrevocably because of it, but if he's honest it's really the dead silence in Scotty's whole frame that does it. He looks at Gene.

"I'm going to put in." He feels Jill revving up but doesn't look at her and just says steadily, "On the condition that you trade into doing back-up. I want you on the vessel running dispatch; if you give me your word that you're not setting foot on that base, I will volunteer."

Through a stiff slant of his eyebrow, Gene shrugs and says, "Yes, sir."

Jill is gone in some trepidation. Finally Scotty speaks. 

"You didn't think that this was something that I might want to know?" he asks, with some stonily conversational gesture.

"I knew that you'd probably go running off to do something stupid if you thought it could help me." Jill's voice is angry in a small sad way. "Just like last year, when you and Nina could have easily gotten killed because you thought you'd wander right into the Knot just to babysit me—"

"I love you," Scotty interrupts, a simple even conveyance.

"Which means what? A bunch of shit misery for one of us? For both of us?" Jill kicks hard at some empty container that clacks over and rolls away. "You're not responsible for my life."

A small bark of frustration and Scotty grunts, "Jill, for God's sake, that isn't _fair_."

She walks away. Jim isn't sure if he expects some angry look from Scotty, but there's something all too crestfallen in the neutral look he gives the rest of them before turning in the opposite direction, probably to go find something to fix.

Jim wants to head back to the bunks and sleep for hours and hours, but he can't. Gene is already off to intercept Moreau's handler so he can give her the good news. They have less than four days to get ready.

 

The drapes that section off the infirmary beds tamp the quiet, holding nothing but a couple patients rasping through the night. Once it's late, Jim ends up there to find Bones rooting through the medical supplies. 

"Could you hand me that?" Bones mumbles at the first second he notices him, and Jim looks where he's pointing and grabs one of the medical PADDs. 

Jim sits on an unoccupied bed for the couple minutes it takes him to have his hands free and then come over finally to slowly sit down next to him.

"You know I would have said something if I could have."

Jim just nods. Quietly he finally asks, "So what's going on?"

He shakes his head, eyes a little wide and overwhelmed. "I cocked it up to hell is what's going on. I should have known that her immune system is too unpredictable; I knew her body would probably reject the organ at least for a while, but nothing like this...The transplant didn't take. Probably just some other goddamn factory-sealed limitation she’s got wired into her genetics that I can’t understand. The only thing that's currently stopping her body from eating the organ right into cardiac arrest is the immuno-suppressants she's drilling in every day, and every other suppressant I've ever given her has only worked for a while before her system has adapted, so it can't be any different with this one. I told her if she wasn't so insistent on looking like everything's okay she could be buying herself more time, taking things one day at a time, but...she just kept taking them. When we got here earlier than she expected, I was half-hoping she'd have gone off them, but maybe we're not the only ones she's putting on the front for."

It stings against his instincts that Jim can only defend futility with futility. "It's not like there's anything else you could have done, Bones. We almost lost her before the surgery."

Painful anger flares in his eyes. "She was counting on me, if she was counting on anything; that I would come up with a miracle. I just can't stop thinking...how easy it would be to do something about it, if we were back—"

"Don't. There's no point in thinking it, and it's not your fault the resources are dry." He cringes. "How _long_ , though? How long was she planning on keeping up the show?"

Bones lifts an eyebrow ruefully. "Probably until it was too late for us to try to do anything like this."

"So if we get a good haul out of the clinic," he slowly asks, "could you save her?"

"Well, you know the reason why I think her system adapts to or rejects all the drugs, right?"

"There's some...designed mutation, so that slave owners have to treat their servants with the company's prescriptions."

"It's a theory; I'm not sure how much it would make sense for her, when she comes from one of the earliest batches, and I'm...not able to say there's anything in there that could cure her, but yes, the drugs they've got could get her a hell of a lot more time. Probably. And if we get enough information off of them, there could be something that could save her. _Maybe_."

Jim stares at the floor next to the bed for a moment. "That's enough for me."

When he looks back at Bones he sees the deep creases of devastation for the first time. He lightly grasps a hand around his forearm.

"Hey," he mutters in simple consolation. "I know you've got a soft spot."

He grunts out a bittersweet scoff. "She's just about the worst patient I've ever had in so many ways, hell, much worse than you....But I just wanted to make something good happen for her."

"Don't give me that; you _have_ ," Jim insists. "You've helped."

A patient emits a crack of a yawn. A long moment slips by in a deeper silence that is abnormal for the echoing chamber around them. Bones furrows his brow. "How did everyone tally up anyway?"

Jim attempts a smirk. "I'm the one who wouldn't know, remember? Come on, though, it's us. I think I'm probably the only one who didn't say yes."

 

Nyota comes into her and Jim's sleeping quarters to find Scotty sitting down on the floor against the bunk. His face is something that would be sheepish if it wasn't shrouded in much heavier stuff. "Oh, honey," she says. She slides down next to him, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"M'alright," he mumbles scratchily, patting her hand. "...I think."

In a moment she says, "You really had no idea?"

"No, 'course I had an idea. I have a bit of a tendency to pay attention to the girl.”

After a few seconds all she can do is nod sadly.

"We'll do what we can." Scotty nods, and the words seem to be spoken mostly to himself. "We'll just have to see what happens. I'm just trying not to be angry with her, you know?...There's no room left to be hard about anything."

"Yeah. I know." Leaning back into her own space a little, she wipes a troubled hand over her mouth, then drops it. "I mean...Jim keeps things from me sometimes, at least he used to. And I could never stand it, not knowing if something awful was going on with him and I would have no idea. To think, something like this...I would be furious, but it's the same old stuff you always get for caring enough. It might seem easier to hate her right now, but you just have to suck it up and be there."

Something is unfazed in a sort of chilling way in Scotty as he says, "I almost think she wants me to hate her."

Nyota slowly gets up and scoots to the far side of the bunk, patting the space next to her. "Yeah. I know."

Scotty kicks his boots off and they sit side by side against the head of the bed. He takes a moment before speaking again. "The first time Jill and I really got to having a grave talk with each other, after all that ugly stuff went down at the old Knot...I remember she kept talking like everything was only something that could have been. How when she first met me she couldn't help thinking we could be something good, but like it was all washed up somehow. And it didn't have anything to do with that Khamak fellow or anything, it was just..." 

She nods.

Scotty frowns into deeper reflection, shaking his head. "That poor Tom. He was her blood, it was simple as that for her. After what had happened, she just knew that she wasn't going to be the same ever again. And all this time, I knew that, but I think I wanted to believe that she could be alright. Not the same again, but still sort of happy. But she's got it in there...this idea that her time's almost up. I don't know what to do. A woman like that knows how to make you feel like it's none of your business, and I...I'm not sure anymore where I fit in, if I'm a part of her life she'd want to fight for."

Nyota wants to make a rushed assurance but she bites her lip, takes her time on understanding it. "I think you make her scared to death. As far as she's concerned, you're just more that she has to lose. It might have been easier to never start with it, but it couldn't have been helped."

Scotty looks at her, like he's heard something she didn't say. "...D'you feel that way about Jim?"

"That he's a huge pain?" she parries.

He just looks at her, mildly unyielding.

She puts up her knees so she can rest her forearms over them, looks past him and out at the sash of movement between the openings of the tarp. "I think I actually thought for a minute, back after we first got stranded, that it would be easier if I just let myself get into it with him. I was looking for this disappointment...like I knew it would fail to fill this hole but I didn't realize it would just open up a different one."

Mouth crooked, Scotty says, "Shagging during wartime isn't what it was in the movies."

"Depending on your definition, it's no actual shagging anyway." She laughs, darkly startled by what she just said, and Scotty cocks an eyebrow. "Sorry if that's too much information."

"I wouldn't want one on the way either. But we don't have to worry about that."

The mood softly capsizes, her face falling in regret. "She can't...? Even if—?"

"No," Scotty says. "She can, sure. Just not in this life."

In the quiet that falls between them Nyota feels as if some weight has gotten knocked right off balance by nothing in particular, and that she is about to cry. For a moment all she's doing is rocking herself out of that spell with her arms crossed over her legs, managing not to. 

She finally looks back at Scotty, lips pressed together until she can offer, "At least you met her in this one."

"Yeah." He nods, and the immensity of his genuine gratitude combined with pure weary sadness nearly overwhelms his eyes. "There is that."

 

In less than two days they're packing up to get back in space. Jim volunteers to make a few routine security rounds while he's waiting for everyone else to be ready; it might be out of some attempt at closure, like he isn't counting on ever making it back there.

Finally before they're readying to take everyone up the lift, Alel and Gene show up as the last latecomers. There was some tension over what to do with Madda; they'd left her with friends while they went up on _Ulysses_ once before, but that day she threw into frantic crying while they said their goodbyes without having any reason to understand the different sense of danger this time. No one would have uttered anything to her about the potential battle, but sometimes kids detect that ring around them of conspiring to keep the dark thing away from young ears; sometimes they just know. 

After all the checklists are counted off Gene and Alel come away to the lifts looking exhausted and a little hard towards each other, and Jim wonders if he will ever see that little girl again.

 

That night the ship is buzzing with the constant noise of its over two dozen occupants. Larade bosses a couple of her boys around the small kitchen until they've helped prepare a thin soup with some eel-like meat that somebody must have gotten up very early to catch. Jim is nervous about people he doesn't even know by name screwing around on the bridge, and Nyota manages to give some tactful reason to make most of the passengers stick to the areas where they've been lined up in their sleeping bags.

He leaves the kitchen where Nyota has found some common ground with Rai in the form of a drinking game, her hand surreptitiously squeezing his hip as he passes by. He was at the smaller table where Alel is now teasingly flicking the end of Jill's braid while he sniffs at a coffee cup in his other hand, Gene leaning against the back of his chair across from them and trying to describe a drink he had once because the name has gotten away from him. 

Low on energy but knowing he won't actually be able to sleep soon, he grabs something to read on the bridge and the sight of Leonard and Scotty there makes him feel like he hasn't caught sight of them in hours. On the way to the back of the ship he heard two of the Klingons debating mildly in their tongue, one of them not sounding fluent; over the next half hour or so it becomes the mumble heard down the hallway while Scotty and Bones make grim remarks about the state of the bathroom and the mess in the kitchen. The combination of voices eventually feels less clamoring and strangely hypnotizing; Jim is close to falling asleep in the pilot's chair when he becomes aware that Jill has joined them. She comes in and sits down somewhat across from where Leonard and Scotty are leaning into the console, with the quiet aura of someone only here to watch. There is surely but barely a blip of anxiety in the air, but Jim doesn't look at Scotty, just shifts up a bit out of his sleepiness and glances out at the stars over Jill's head. She looks at him then, an expressionless notice; the look is so idle and natural between them, that Jim contemplates her in some way, for the first time.

The woman who once held a gun on him sits hammocked into the webs between them and for a short moment Jim smiles a rueful smile down at her brown head, and after a second, her mouth crooks up at him in slanted warmth; then she looks at her lap and he looks back at the stars.

After what seems like a long moment she demands, "What is that smell?"

Catching right in, making it look easy, Scotty says, "It's Jim's hair dye. It stenches up the whole place for days and days, but we've all kind of gotten used to it."

Jim says, "I just tell myself it smells better than a prison ship."

"Actually, I think it smells pretty good," Jill says.

Scotty chuckles wickedly. "She's such a weirdo, this one."

Jill grins right across the room. When Bones starts off on an explanation to do with differently evolved olfactory systems, they go to the same teasingly bored expressions and plugging up their ears, and Bones gives Scotty's arm a gruff little smack until he starts into half of a snicker; the conversation becomes remember-that-patient, remember-that-planet, remember-that-time? And Jim begins to realize, probably very belatedly, that he does know Jill quite well by now, and that for the past year and a half she has actually been something like a friend to him, and that he doesn't know how they're going to lose her.

 

The next Moreau is wearing one of Leonard's ratty sweaters, presumably without permission, and Nyota notices this as she pours herself some coffee for probably the first of several tactical discussions. Jim decided it would be better to wait until they convene with the rest of Moreau's or Spock's or whoever's little army was joining them, but there are issues Jim is too worried about to wait on.

"It's not reassuring that you haven't heard from him in so long. To say the least," Jim is saying tiredly when she sits down among the tight group of personnel in the kitchen.

"It was never part of the plan to keep in touch while I was underground," Moreau says, then shifts her feet, rolling her eyes up. "Not to imply that he has any idea the colony is under anything."

"I'm still not seeing anywhere close to a hundred percent certainty that we'll have him with us when we hit the clinic, and we can't bet on being able to wait around for him for very long without being detected."

Moreau's lips press along each other in an expression Nyota can't quite read. She says, "He'll be there. Unless someone or something actually shackles him down, he'll get there."

"Unless," Nyota parrots dubiously.

Jim gives a scoffing flinch of agreement. "It's not good enough. The entire plan is hinged on the idea that we can get the ship mapped out telepathically; the kind of gamble we're taking if that doesn't go over right is not what these people signed up for." 

Whatever denial or suggestion Moreau was gathering up is interrupted by Charlie.

"May I speak just with the ship's regular crew?" It's maybe an overly tactful way of wording it, but she could have hardly gone over well describing Jim as the highest in command of this mission. As it is, a few of the others look suspicious and impatient, but possibly considering the oddity of Charlie speaking out, they clear away pretty quickly until Nyota and Jim are alone with her in the meek privacy only a few yards away from where the crowd of still-waking people are buzzing up through the corridor and sleeping quarters. As Charlie sits down in the chair Moreau was leaning into before, Nyota catches Jim's eye in a sudden breeze of anticipation, as if they've both just realized they understand something of what she's about to say.

"The reason I asked for a limited audience is because, while this information isn't exactly a secret, it pertains to some details I would rather not announce very...theatrically." Charlie cocks an eyebrow at an almost-spent cigarette someone left propped over a saucer, picks it up and snubs it down in a precise pinch. "I understand that Spock is considered invaluable to the mission because of his ability to extract the floor plan of the facility from one of its members, and the attack will go more efficiently if he is involved; but should he not appear in time, it's best for you to know he isn't the only Vulcan you can use."

Nyota feels like the appropriate response should be so simple, but it's not quite coming to her. Finally it's Jim who swallows and half-wryly asks, "Are we the last to know? You know, out of—?"

"Hardly." Charlie shakes her head in one of her flat efficient half-motions, reminding Nyota that maybe this fact occurred to her, in faint and brief speculation, before. "Jill might suspect, but I've never known for certain. Tom knew, from the second day I lived at the Knot; no one else."

"Why?" Nyota asks before she can think better of it. "Why pretend for all that time?"

Looking at her with flavorless surprise, Charlie slowly asks, "Would you like to know the whole story?"

Nyota only exchanges an uncertain look with Jim, hesitating.

"I don't mind; it's only that I've never...actually told it." 

Somebody lingers at the threshold, one of the volunteers he can't identify probably looking for more food. Jim motions him away sternly.

Charlie began with a tilt of her head, "I am really called T'shar, though the name feels strange to me now. With my accent, if I said it fast enough it sounded to Tom a little like 'Char,' and that's how the nickname started. But long before that, when I was nineteen, I was part of a research mission with my mother on a desert planet not far from Vulcan. The project was raided for dilithium by Terran Imperial soldiers and most of the Vulcans there were brought back to Earth. I was then sold into construction labor, repairing bridges and landmarks mostly. The work was hard. My mother had a condition that made her prone to seizures if her body temperature went too high; she fell off of a loading dock one day and drowned. I remember that they didn't even go in to retrieve the body.

"I kept working that way for years. It was lucky for me that one day I just happened to get mixed up in the wrong shuttle car to the wrong job; it didn't mean better work, but it meant that I was in a new place very shortly before Vulcan was swallowed into a black hole. There was myself and only two other Vulcans in my work block, but it was one of the technicians there, a Romulan named Niole, who first realized the precarious position we were suddenly in simply because we were a rarity...There had always been the occasional Terran who would come by our work stations and stand leering, and we came to understand that sometimes they would negotiate with the operators and put down a price to take slaves home with them. Sometimes only to...borrow, you understand, but not always. For whatever reason, there would always be the type of person who would find the most expensive foreigner the most desirable, and now that we were part of an endangered species we could count on being very, very expensive, to the point that we would probably only be coveted as aesthetic completion for 'collectors.' They always used that word. 'Collectors.'"

Nyota takes an awkward swig of coffee, in the silence, while Charlie takes a moment.

"The other Vulcans wouldn't listen to Niole, and I think it may not have done them as much good even if they had. At first I didn't either, but he convinced me finally that I would be safer if I could make a very convincing Romulan; he was very insistent that the buyers can tell the difference. To this day I almost can't comprehend his kindness and concern, but he was determined to help. He apparently had some kind of academic interest in Vulcan; he'd committed an amount of studying to understanding the process by which we control our emotions and perhaps it was because of that that he felt he could help me attempt to unlearn it just enough to pretend.

"We began meeting every night for these endless, tiring lessons. He thought anger was a good place to start, and he provoked me and prodded me daily in the work square, until I began to react to my increasing resentment of him. We went from there. Humor was the hardest, but everything was hard. I did everything I could to understand what it was to be at the mercy of feelings; I was learning to blame my mistakes on other people, to overreact, dumbing down every kind of fervor to its crudest forms. Like some kind of cognitive therapy in reverse. I would have let Niole take me to bed if it would have helped me comprehend that sort of passion, but he never became comfortable with the idea. He made my dedication into a joke, though, when I brought it up; after all, I had to learn how to laugh, no matter how bad things got." 

A brief flicker in her expression: old amusement, worn dry, but painful too. Nyota can't remember if she's ever seen her laugh.

"As could be expected, the other Vulcans thought that I was obscene. A few months after I'd arrived I was one of only two left in our work force; the other was a girl named T'nel, and she told me I was killing what was left of our culture by behaving in such a way. I could not argue with it. When she was finally sold, I shocked myself by weeping over it. I had become quite good at crying when it was for the benefit of the charade, when I was being beaten for taking too much water, but I couldn't remember weeping for myself before. And that made me cry even more, for the fact that my ability to do that was what was saving me." Her eyes are frozen forward on the table. "It was also one of the times I questioned if it was worth it. A slave losing all this sleep to avoid being another kind of slave. But I've talked to refugees who...got the more personal relationship with those types of buyers I was trying to avoid. I can only tell myself that it was."

They are all stooped over the table on their elbows now. After a moment Jim asks, "How did you ever end up at the Knot?"

"There was a fight one day, at a shuttle station we were waiting at on the way to a construction site. It was a feud between two Terrans that had nothing to do with us, but one of these drunks had a bullet gun and got the idea to prove how serious he was about using it by pointing it at one of us. The man he threatened was a close friend of Niole's, and younger than me; I moved around him and took the bullet in my shoulder. I have a vague memory of Niole stroking my hair while the medics took their time to get to me, and then of waking up in the servant ward and being told they had already replaced me with another industrial nape, which meant I had no idea where I would be going next. A few days later I managed to escape from a shuttle that was going through Kentucky, which as you know wasn't too far from the Knot. 

"When I made my way into the town it was only by reflex that I still presented myself as a Romulan, though it was something of a shock that it wasn't just the Terrans who never suspected the disguise. It used to be everyone was so proud; we knew it was the enemy's mistake to think Vulcans and Romulans look exactly alike. But I guess it's not that simple anymore when you're surrounded by genetically engineered mixed kids who can't lift much more weight than humans...soldiers with accents from America, Ireland, Australia, all with this shared non-identity...I just happened to meet Tom a day after I first arrived, when he was trying to interrogate a human he thought was some kind of spy, and I figured that a person who was in charge of something like that should know that I'm capable of performing a mind meld. And then I kept my secret, and he kept my secret...until the day he died."

Nyota's voice feels scratchy when she speaks. "Couldn't you have told a few others, though? Someone like Gene?"

"...That's a little complicated. For one thing, I am not so sure what I would even call myself anymore. I'm hardly the personality I put on in front of the Terrans while I was put to work, but I am not the person I was before then either. Some Romulans find the slave-bred among them to be impostors, but I always had a strange envy for those around me who hadn't been born on Romulus or could barely remember it but could still feel connected to it, because it was stolen from them. And then there I was, part of an endangered race that I had forsaken."

Nyota interrupts in frustrated assurance, "But they did steal it. You were only trying to survive with what you had left."

She hesitates with the slightest gleam of something in her eyes, pulling in a breath too even to quite be a sigh. "Most Romulans will accept me sooner if they don't know. But I think the most honest reason for my silence is that, after lying for so long about who I was, I was too ashamed of the lie to begin to tell the truth."

Rubbing the heel of his hand at his eye, Jim quietly says, "It must have been hard to tell us all this...Thank you."

"I maintain, however," she says, changing her tone, "that I should be in charge of handling the explosives, no matter what my other responsibilities are."

"Like I'd ever let you off the hook there." Jim is already getting his notes back up. "Have you seen the list of everything we have to work with?"

She gestures for him to hand his PADD across to her. Nyota gets up for more coffee.

 

Eventually Bones is dragged up to give his input on projected floor plans. Their own Starfleet back home had handsomely stocked medical bases—obviously for very different uses, and not as large—but the bizarre correlations they've seen leads them to believe the place may end up being similarly built. 

Bones took some elective course at the academy that involved schematics, and his fingers flick confidently over the touchscreen to draw up a very basic floor plan while Jill looks over this with curiosity. He's able to designate a second possible plan and leaves the rest up to Jim's theorizing.

"I like this one," Gene says, nodding at one of the screens and making the doctor blink over his shoulder. He makes a wide-open gesture, adding, "The wings are organized very, uh, _intuitively_."

"Are you up here to actually be useful?" Scotty teases.

Gene settles into business with a mock-simper and asks Jim, "What's the point here?"

"These are five basic floor plans that are likely to be close to how the clinic is laid out," Jim says without looking up. "No guarantees. We won't know which the actual schematic is closest to until we get there, so everyone has to memorize a tactical plan for every layout. Within a few days."

One of Larade's younger men marches confidently into the kitchen. "Mr. Kirk."

"That's me."

"I'm notifying you we should meet our rendezvous point with the Nyrok vessel in less than an hour."

"Oh. Thanks." Jim looks at Scotty as soon as the Klingon has walked right back out. "Is Jill still sitting the bridge?"

"Did you explicitly ask her to stay there until one of us got back up there?" Scotty asks. "Then no."

"Ooh, Daddy, can I?" Gene offers, already getting up.

"Don't touch anything 'cept the comm system to let me know if something beeps," Jim calls after him, which he probably knows is an insult to Gene's experience with vessels, but still. "And have your notes so I can send you these plans as soon as they're done."

"You're welcome," Gene replies, and Alel falls into step with him down the corridor.

 

When they beam over, the first person to greet them is part of the miscellaneous party of Spock's Terran activists who got a ride with the Nyroks. He's a sturdy-looking guy with a red beard growing in, and as he escorts them out to the halls he strikes Nyota as having a pinch of star-struck nervousness, which is frankly a new one for her, coming from a fellow human.

The Nyrok ship is basically designed and sizeable, and totally pitch-black in color except for the white trim around the doorways and equipment nooks, and the glow of white lighting coming from the high ceilings. The Nyroks themselves are all very tall and very bald, with large expressive but otherwise quite human-looking eyes ranging in colors from olive to blue-green. Their skin comes in human shades, with an an only slightly scaly sheen. Most of them speak fluid standard, and one of the first things their spokesperson, a woman named Peel, says is, "If you're aware of our tradition of presenting gifts to new allies, I regret we couldn't provide anything lavish. Our cook has promised one of the best meals we can give for later tonight." 

Nyota feels awkward caught in the flinch between Jim and Moreau, the two twitching for the authority as they aren't sure which of them should speak first. 

"No need for apologies," Moreau takes it, seemingly as Jim's in the middle of saying a thanks. "We need to discuss how you'll all be fitting into the plans, but first I need to talk to Spock."

"I'm afraid he's not with us," Peel replies, her eyes casting to one of her neighbors for a second. "The rest of the team we agreed to pick up was accounted for. One of them wanted to speak to you about it, so I had better reserve my own explanation."

If there was much detailed talk about when and how the commander was expected to join up, Nyota missed it. It's when she turns and sees Moreau's offset face that she understands what this could mean. After a moment Moreau simply declares, "That's not good," and marches past Peel and the welcoming party. 

This leaves the several who just beamed over a little lost as to whether they should follow her. A good deal of the ragtag groups make it to them first: In curious response to the rumors of the beaming party the volunteers start spilling in until that area of the hall is bustling and loosely separating Jim and Nyota from the others.

Without the manner of Moreau's exit the meet-and-greet might have been pleasant rather than overwhelming in its informality. A woman with the look of being unkempt after an all-nighter but content to be there picks out Nyota and starts trying to introduce herself, but Jim has just come to some decision and is pulling lightly on her forearm. Then when they get a little closer to the door they hear a strong voice suddenly booming: "Hey!—Hey, Cyrus!"

Jim almost ignores the call, and then they both stop at the same time, grabbing at each other with the realization. Looking around, Jim yells, "If that isn't Ed Brighton I'll eat his holster!"

"All this time and you still suck at answering to an alias," the voice says, and finally they spot the familiar figure standing close outside of the transporter room doorway; Brighton snickers and leans back against the wall as they approach. He nods at Nyota. "Good to see you in one piece, ma'am."

"Mr. Brighton." She nods, catching his old-timey courtesies even as she stammers, "We figured you were dead."

"So did I. I was right on the hook to get tortured for intel, and then one of the security assistants turned out to be some _Enterprise_ defector who goes by the name of—"

"Moreau?" Jim is fairly shocked to put it together. "Moreau got you out?"

Brighton shrugs. "Thing is, back when both of us were still at the Knot, just a little before you left, this blond gentleman who looked a hell of a lot like he could be your father passed into town and shot the shit with me at my shop for a while, and he was looking for you...Turns out that piece of small talk saved my ass. He passed on my name to Spock at some point and when the government brought me in for information somehow it went through the right channels and sent up a red flag. Of course, she was hoping I could tell them where your colony was. I said thanks for the ride but I've got no damn clue; she said thanks for nothing, now you're with us."

Nyota stares. "You don't look like a hostage to me."

"It's either buckle down with you all or enjoy being on the lam back home. I never was able to do anything interesting with that ship money, not since I was blacklisted and had to keep a low profile.”

Jim hesitates before asking, “What do you know about any other Terrans who were associated with the Knot? I have a hard time imagining they all got as lucky.”

Brighton shifts his weight to the other leg and leans back into the wall, thinking. “Since you guys left there have been a hell of a lot more little fortresses setting up here and there on Earth, for people with reputations like mine, or even for servants; it's not pines and fresh air anymore for those guys, but it's a lot easier to find someone willing to put up a fugitive in their basement...there's more of an actual underground network now. It's cause so many people have got bees in their bonnets about Mazel's policies. Lots of angry civilians. As for you guys...Still four of you?"

Jim nods.

"I'm glad to hear it. What about the others?” He cracks a remembering smile. “That Romulan with the braid, did she and Scotty ever jump the broom or anything?"

They both hesitate, and Nyota leaps in, "Maybe we'll catch up later. It's great to see you're okay."

"You too," he says with a final nod, clapping Jim on the shoulder as they start their way down the corridor.

 

Moreau still looks plenty surly later on and that means, Jim figures, that the commander is still M.I.A. This assumption is confirmed within the hour when they organize an urgent meeting to move around a lot of their plans.

This is not good news for anyone, but for the time he finds it difficult to summon any deep feeling of unease. He might be more tripped up with concern if Moreau seemed to be, though it's not like he knows her well enough to really tell.

The feeling among the four, now knowing that they probably won't be working through the attack alongside Spock, seems to mostly be unspoken relief. Charlie's revelation is turning out to look like a lifesaver, and though Moreau and a lot of the other volunteers look appeased when it's brought out in the open, she still looks to be pocketing the assumption that something has gone very wrong.

Jim does his share of reassuring the others that they have no reason to think that Spock knows anything that could endanger them if he's captured and is being interrogated, though he himself isn't entirely convinced. Something tingles unpleasantly at his moral center for going straight to that concern, but from how Moreau describes the commander and what Jim remembers of him, he's not the kind who would consider the worrying anything but a waste of time if he were on the other side of the mess. 

On the other hand, the news that Moreau secured Brighton seems to marginally allow some more comfort with her. Just the previous morning Bones was referring to her as " _Hauptsturmführer_ Kirk's cloak and dagger," a sentiment which might be aired now more in grim laughter than resentment. Eddie is nobody's ethical paragon but there's still something that rearranges the picture in his rapport with her; he grumbles, " _Dammit_ , Marlena," patting at his pockets when they're all waiting for instructions in the rec room, and Moreau passes by to hand him back his lighter while she's going over her notes in her other hand. She stays on her feet and never sits down at anyone's table.

Peel makes a round to Jim and the others to announce that there should be a meeting of all the fighters together for the sole purpose of a telepathy demonstration. "The way in which the knowledge is acquired can feel strange to some who aren't of our people, so it would be helpful if the mind projection during the raid isn't your first experience with it."

Nyota nods. "What are we going to be learning?" 

"My assistant Denn has assigned you all to specific areas in the sleeping barracks; I thought we could communicate the look and location of the area."

As it turns out, Nyrok telepathy is something that Jim thinks could be pretty damn scary in the hands of the wrong person; it’s so far from invasive that the subtlety of it feels too easy. They all gather in one of the two huge hangar decks and feel like they’re supposed to be watching a demonstration when Denn rises up out of his chair, but it’s all pretty unceremonious. He doesn’t even lift his hands and there’s nothing to watch; the new knowledge is simply there, and a good half of the audience is convinced it hasn’t worked right until they pause to realize the mental image of their assigned sleeping spaces is as vivid as any genuine memories.

Sitting next to Jim, Bones tilts his head and says with gruff appreciation, “Huh. Wonder what else they can do with that trick.”

On their way heading to bed later, Bones goes aside to a pale-looking Jill who is looking after the anxious Hosanna with an insistent bracing grip. He takes the cat out of her arms but sits down next to her, and Jim knows that look more than well enough to understand he’s got some serious talk to lay on her. Jim tucks into his own business and goes to find Nyota, wondering vaguely what that’s about, but has good reason to assume that was Bones persuading Jill to start staggering her immuno-suppressants into less frequent doses. 

Less than two days before they’re estimated to come into contact with Third House, while most of the ship is dreaming soundly, Jim and Nyota stir awake around the same time, still set to similar clocks, and notice that none of the Romulans are in their bunks, and neither is Bones. They hear from Charlie at breakfast that Jill had some intense chills and shortness of breath that woke her up in the night, but she's stable for the time. Jim's coffee goes cold before he's finished half of it. He goes over the notes a thirtieth time.

 

Gene takes the job of proctoring the reload timing the next evening, pushily marching everyone into sitting around a long ovular table in the cluttered seminar room. 

With a batch of ten people at once sitting down with three semi-automatics each laid out in front of them, he announces, “Okay, you unload, strip, then reload for all three weapons in front of you. If you don’t already know how to take apart a gun that looks like this, please don’t waste our time even trying."

This whole thing seemed to be both his and Moreau's idea: a spirit of competition encouraging people to make an honest show about how competent they were with handling the hard guns, with the slowest and least practiced "winning" the phasers, of which they have only eleven. The fastest will have to negotiate among them who can handle the small-load revolvers as well as who gets one of the truly depressing stock of bigger rifles. 

"We’re not going to do a strict bracket or anything, but we may test some people more than once. Obviously we didn’t load them but try not to be too embarrassing with your safety. If there are no questions, I’m calling hands off your pistols. Not those pistols, Rai. Yeah, fuck you too. Ready, set. Time!”

The room cocks and clicks. From where she's standing behind Leonard, Nyota notices Moreau is by far the fastest: she slides home the loads with a blind clockwork and sets her last gun down with time to start wondering what they’re serving in the mess, right before a Klingon across from her places second. Leonard makes some fumble while pulling back a barrel slide and knocks his magazine off the table, and Nyota lifts her left arm to disqualify him with her other hand giving him a regretful squeeze on the shoulder, making him chuckle and pat at her fingers.

Jim places fourth and then gets up to be her judge when they’re switching in another round. 

She’s done this a handful of times and she’s only decent at it. Jill showed her how one day after accepting an offer of help with the gun cleaning and Nyota ended up fascinated by the Romulan’s fluid dexterity with the things that was like something out of an old action flick. It was a reminder that it’s the mechanics much more than the actual application of weaponry that Jill enjoys—one of the things Scotty affectionately recognized in her very quickly—but despite Nyota’s casual respect for what she sees as purely antique technology she can’t help hoping for a phaser whenever one is available, which makes the idea of intentionally going slow a little tempting. She noted when Gene was talking about their stock that he didn’t say whether the phasers were equipped with stun settings or not; probably it’s a mix of both. 

She lets out a sigh just before Gene calls time: Either the table’s a weak one or it’s beginner’s luck, but she comes in third.

“Now, now,” Moreau is saying a little mockingly off at the wall, as one of the Romulans is grunting in irritation at his own poor speed. “It's not a contest.”

By the end of the day weapons are distributed, along with yet another update on tactical discussions that were carried out in the painstaking hours they've been spending around the dinner table going over finite details while cramming noodles and vitamin bread. Nyota’s third place somehow got her a phaser anyhow; she goes up to ask Gene about this, and he mutters around some explanation, not really trying to hide that he decided her experience made her too good a shooter to give her a weapon she wasn’t comfortable with. She tries to give his coy shrugging a stern look but ends up walking off listlessly.

“I think he’s right,” Jim says simply when she catches up to him where he’s gone to ask Brighton about something. "The tests were mostly a show anyway, so that he can say he was being careful about the fighters he doesn't know."

“Somebody who’s worse than I am with the old-fashioned guns will—”

“—will be more careful with how they choose their battles. You don’t think Gene’s considering that?” Jim's eyes go a little more reflective. “He isn’t taking this job lightly. He can’t be on the inside with the rest of us, and the mission’s important to him, so just let him have it, let him do his thing.”

“...Okay,” she finally concedes.

“It’s all a really complicated failsafe anyway. With any luck we’ll be able to disarm from the ground up and most of these people won't spend even a bullet...”

“I said okay,” she interrupts, but the terseness is said in affection, some chagrined look playing between them. “Have we picked up any blip of the base yet?”

“Not that I know of. And I guess I’d know.” He looks her up and down. “You should get some sleep.”

“...If you’re coming.”

He absently pulls her in at the hips to drop his head into her neck. “I’ll head off in a bit.”

A moment pulls by, and Nyota murmers into his ear, "She's looking at us again." Not exactly: Moreau's figure in the distance only gave a subtle motion of notice. But she doesn't like it.

"...It wasn't her idea," Jim says softly.

They won't be together during the raid, and they've barely talked about it; there's nothing to be said. "I know...It's fine. It's the right plan."

They unwind enough for her to accept a kiss. Her hand slides down his arm in a drift as she walks off, and before entering the hallway she turns briefly to look at him again. His hunched studying posture makes her long to know what their lives will be in a month, in a week. Not whether this will be over, but how it will be. The feeling is hungry and heavy, and tired.

She decides that when she wakes up later she’ll have to put in some target practice in the simulations chamber—if there’s still time.


	8. Third House

Jim doesn’t have a chance to feel bad about the fact that he falls right asleep in his seat about thirty minutes after telling Nyota he’ll be in his bunk soon. He jumps awake to a heavy knock against the table just next to his head.

“It's contact,” Jill is saying. 

“Oh, shit,” he says, springing up.

All around him a good half of the people in the area are hoisting up the mission packs they’ve been almost constantly glued to for the past twelve or so hours. Jim’s is right under the table. He double-checks his ammunition load and looks around for familiar heads, spotting Jill already giving Scotty a hard squeeze goodbye over in the glow of one of the ceiling lights. He resolves that he has no way of knowing who he’s even going to have a chance to check up on before the invasion is a go and heads straight to the bridge to get sitrep from the Nyroks, who are currently busy weaving the ship around the base’s range of detection.

Getting onto the thing is going to be the easiest part. One of the Nyroks only has to see a member of the crew, even from over a comm link, to make the mental contact they need to give them some reason to lower their shields just long enough to use a small jamming burst to compromise one of their hangar bays. For Jim this really confirms that the power they have with their type of telepathy is staggering, but on the other hand Bones explained to Jim the night before that one individual Nyrok only has the energy to create that type of projection one time in a handful of days; it doesn’t tire them physically, but the one who gave them the demonstration the other night won’t be able to use any telepathy for several weeks. A Nyrok on their own in an enemy society might not last too long relying on those tricks. 

Though he’s anxious to see how this deception plays out, Jim is hastily encouraged to organize numbers out close to the transporter room and leaves the bridge after confirming the preliminary plans. When he gets down there and slides into the tide of people surrounding the beaming pad, he gets a summoning gesture from Moreau who’s already standing up there next to Larade.

“I think your group should go in with Lyd,” she says, jotting a note to someone on a PADD even as she’s speaking, “just to make sure he gets back alright with the information. I don’t know about putting the Klingons on any kind of multi-tasking bodyguard business even if it’s just a couple minutes.”

He isn’t sure that’s entirely fair to the Klingons, but that plan sits a little better with him and isn’t a big change. “Fine. He can project to us right before he beams back and we can get a head-start for the med supplies while everyone else is boarding.”

“You won’t have Larade’s guys to help you get that head-start; are you okay with that?”

“They’ll catch up. If we can stay under the radar for just that long, they’ll provide a good distraction right after."

Jim’s boarding party, barring the possibility of any slight change of plans, is aimed mostly at hoarding away as many supplies as they can and then ensuring the research they’re trying to destroy not only gets downloaded into their bank but wiped completely before the system has the chance to transfer it to any emergency data hubs. Jim is convinced they can corrupt enough of this information to make it just about impossible for the breeding projects to resume again, at least for a very long time. But even with how badly they need the information for themselves, there's no promise they can make that a priority.

He’s set to beam over with Scotty, Bones, Charlie and Lyd, as well as a Nyrok commander named Daar whom Jim got along with easily during a couple of the meetings and decided to try to enlist for their part of the mission. She has a long line of a scar running along her chin, only prominent enough for him to notice it now as her tall form falls in next to him with her head raised attentively at the announcements coming on from the bridge. She’s giving Lyd a last-minute run-down of everything he’s expected to do when the Nyrok operating the transporter beam gives them the two-minute gesture.

Only at the very last moment do he and Nyota manage to grab a lucky embrace from each other, clutching into each other’s arms as soon as her face comes out of the crowd after she makes it into the room.

“You be careful,” Jim says. “I’ll be—”

“One minute!” Larade bellows in a hard beat over the crowd. “Everyone needs to be with their assigned party _now_!”

Nyota fades just as quickly out of his hold, goes to find her group. Once atop the transporter pad he sees her form joining in next to the much larger party that’s mostly non-humans, Brighton’s stooped head next to her. 

Half a minute later the sight dissolves, and out of nothing he has the uneasy overturning reminder in his head: Commander Spock didn’t make it to aid them. There is a reason for that.

 

When the hangar bay brushes into his vision his first thought is shortly spared for relief that the hole in the shields was good enough that the beam-through didn’t feel rough; the last thing they need is for a few to end up shredded off the battleground from pure old-fashioned transporter accidents. Then he’s clutching both grips at his gun.

The bay is dark enough for there to be lurkers in the shadows: Jim doesn’t even hear or see the movement before Charlie picks up and lands a stun hit on the advancing form, and a member of security topples unconscious into the illuminated patch. Charlie is quickly crouched and performing a meld while Jim and Daar and Scotty clear out wider to cover her.

He casts a quick look back at where Charlie says, “Done,” and Lyd leans in. After none of them find any other officers on the hangar deck, Jim stays up at the entrance and Scotty and Daar convene back at the center. Jim waits with deliberate steadiness for the image of what should be on the other side of the door. When it finally comes, he looks back over his shoulder. “Well done.”

“Good luck,” Lyd says quickly, and taps for a direct beam-back on the beacon remote, one of the mere two their party was equipped with, and shimmers away while the rest absorb the new information with a very brief bout of pacing. They all look at each other, the plan forming at the center of them.

“Shall we do this?” is Scotty's friendly invitation. 

Out of the bay and into the wide corridor and Jim waves them to the right. 

A moment later one woman in a lab coat gasps at their approach and tucks to her left, disappearing behind a sliding door. They continue on until a man finally exits another room, halts at the sight and goes for his comm unit, almost distracting from a different man sliding quickly around the curve.

“ _Freeze_! Put down your weapons or—” A stun burst whacks the second man hard against the wall, while the first one backs up and runs.

“Nice one, Bones. Scotty, what’s your take?” Jim nods his head towards a security console of unfamiliar design. Between his skills and Scotty's, it may be worth a try to completely disarm the shields here rather than rely on an infiltration of the main power source.

"I'll give it a whirl," Scotty says with a nod.

 

They’re waiting for Lyd to return and be marched into the hallway where a gathering of every single person who needs to know the layout will be lined up somewhere in front of him. Nyota can’t help repeating her checks, taking stock of her utility belt too many times, getting on her toes to check the chronometer. Looking around her and seeing mostly strangers, she's vividly reminded all three of the others and even Charlie are with the looting party. 

“Would you quit the fidgeting?” Moreau mumbles from just next to her, and Nyota frowns, annoyed at her own obviousness.

“She’s just fine,” Brighton says. “I’m the one who checked my barrel about nine dozen times ever since they blared the horn.”

“Are you good with that thing?” Nyota asks him, realizing after it comes out that this is not the time at all to make that kind of question conversational. “You didn’t exactly come to the Knot for the heroics.”

Moreau cocks an eyebrow, having picked up on the wry poise of what Nyota said. “Why _did_ you end up there?”

“Sorry, Eddie,” Nyota says, thinking that was a pretty crappy thing to bring up right now, but it’s hard to make it entirely sincere.

He shakes his head and divulges, “I went to Asheville to find the guy who killed my wife.”

Moreau's chewing on that even as she crooks her chin up to follow some vaguely excited movements up front; false alarm. "A refugee? And you were going to kill him?”

“Well, I wasn’t planning to sing him a damn song.”

“And then what, you just went native after a while?”

“If you want the nice version, something like that.”

Now Moreau falls into a pout of dissatisfaction. “How is it I didn’t know this about you?”

Brighton gets harder on her then. “Well, you can’t know everything there is to know about your targets.”

She makes a face, a little more disgruntled. “You were never my target.”

“Target, asset...what’s the difference?”

Nyota finally snaps, “Would you two get your heads in the right place? Lyd should be back any second now.”

“We’re fine,” Moreau says, and her question is comfortably insistent: “What do you mean, what’s the difference?”

There's a second of slight dismay, and then he laughs darkly. “Don’t you think my part in this is kind of fucked either way?”

This blares a small alarm for Nyota, who's finally noticing the very real jitters in the man standing next to her. “Eddie, you need to throw down one way or another. Have you ever even thought about doing anything like this before?” She’s suddenly angry about the possibility that he hasn’t and nobody bothered to look out for him enough.

“What are you talking about?” Moreau demands as if she hasn’t heard anything from Nyota.

“I’m just some mechanic with a dead wife, I’m just some fucked up guy. A few crazy months happen, next thing I know I’m a resistance figher ‘cause it’s my only ticket out of getting tortured and executed—”

Nyota interrupts right across Moreau: “Eddie, if you didn’t feel like you had a choice I’m not going to stand by and let her push you into this. You want out?”

He falters, looking around at everyone. “I can’t do that.”

“You can, but do you want to?”

“But it’s...I mean, I’m part of the plan. I’m not all that important, but...everybody’s depending on me, right?” 

He looks at her, the look both brave and imploring for it to not be true. She looks back at him with an unswerving neutrality. “Yes, everyone is depending on you.”

Then Moreau says something that's almost soft with surprise, taking Nyota aback: 

“Look, I’m not gonna let you _die_ in there.”

Eddie is scoffing at this just before they notice that Lyd is back.

 

“Shields have taken the hit,” Daar announces, and Bones helps Scotty out from under the console just as Jim has to lay a few warning shots toward the end of the hall before backing away to the rest. Charlie is briskly finishing up the motions of applying one of the bomb pods to an interior pipe in the wall.

“That’s probably the best we’ll be able to do,” Jim says, helping Charlie shove the panel back on so no one stops to mess with her setup. “Can we set off the evacuation alarm from here, you think?”

Scotty has already booted it up. “Clear ‘em out,” he urges to the air, and with a flick of motion over the console, a strip of light along the wall begins to blink red.

“So,” Bones says with impressively calm ruefulness, “the more cowardly ones will run to the escape pods. The rest...”

“The rest will know we’re here,” Daar finishes with a kind of casual dread. With no other comments, they begin making a steady way sticking to the walls, heading for the nearest utility tubes to begin the climb up.

 

The base is built like a clenched fist.

This is what Nyota is thinking when the party is marching away from the concentrated lines they formed to all be visible to Lyd, as the design of the entire structure unfolds in a series of memories she has no place for. The base has several circular levels that form a huge ovular shape, and most of the floors run their structures in cyclical patterns just like any constitution-class. But at the very bottom, the separation of the chambers builds a pattern of a few folded fingers: that’s where the prison-like corridors of cage after cage after cage interrupt the pattern into lines. The main entrances to those halls are even slang-termed “knuckles,” she learns from whatever person got his or her knowledge on it snatched up by Charlie. A fist slamming downward where there is no down or up, only the black space that veils from even the rest of any Terran eyes whatever crimes go on inside. 

Larade’s much larger squad is set to go ahead of them, guarding their party from the initial onslaught of crew that will be on the defense even if they’re headed to the escape shuttles. Nyota's a touch irritated when she realizes Moreau is receiving some important information over the comm directly from Larade; Moreau taps off of listening to her headpiece and turns to her and Brighton. “They should be able to beam us all in before they have the chance to rebuild their shields, and the personnel that’s more concerned about getting to the escape pods aren’t exactly going to have any brilliant plans on how to do that.”

“The shields are already down?” 

“One of her tech guys says it looks like they just fed some relay into the computer so that the system reacts like the ship's at warp.”

Nyota manages a smile.

After that it’s very fast work with the transporters. They can’t see very well who’s headed in until they’re right below the pad themselves. Nyota recognizes Khamak, Jill’s old suit from the Knot, posturing himself with a confident enough hold on a phaser before he goes through with a party of a few other Romulans she doesn’t know accompanied by one or two Klingons. And then they’re up.

 

“Ah!” Scotty barks, his arm shooting out from a flash of precarious wiring built into a hull compartment. “Alright. The comm system should be compromised for just a minute or so and then as soon as it comes back...”

“Yeah, but where do we access the system?” Jim demands.

“Haven't figured it out yet,” he admits. 

Bones is throwing up his hands just as a barely audible series of thumps and shots is heard somewhere in the corridors, up a floor and a little to the right.

“Sounds like the rest are making good enough time,” Charlie looks up to comment.

Just then something crackles into Jim’s personal channel. “Jim? We’re through and headed down.”

Tamping down the beat of warm relief at hearing Nyota’s voice, he asks, “Hey, do you think you’ll have any way to intercept the comm frequencies? I want to...”

“Hold on,” she says, and Jim realizes this is spoken to someone else. He hears her saying, “Cover me for a sec,” and then a ripping crack, like something being pulled from the guts of a console, as in the background a grunted exclamation sounds a lot like Brighton.

After only a minute she says, “Their general comm is now linked to our bottom frequency, Jim. Channel six.”

“That fast?”

“You're welcome, captain,” she replies with a smirking edge in her voice, then taps off with, “We’re taking off down below now.”

Jim changes the frequency setting; the general announcement link crunches into a sigh of static, and Jim hears his own breath over it.

“Attention, all crew members of Imperial Starfleet’s Third House Medical Base,” he begins in his sardonic relish. “In case you weren’t already aware, there is currently a raid being conducted on this institution. We are alerting you to our presence in order to urge you to promptly get to the escape pods, as we do plan on destroying the entire base. Also, be advised that I have irreversibly installed the security protocol into the pod release systems so that no escape vessel can be ejected without at least 75 percent of the standard capacity being reached. This means that you will not only probably be unable to leave the base without assisting a couple of your fellow Terrans but that you would all be endangering your crew mates by focusing your precious time on opposing our business here. Please know that if you nevertheless come against us with deadly force, we have plenty to give back. Have a lovely evacuation.”

Daar seems to have a glint of dark amusement in her expression when they quickly get moving again.

 

Far up ahead, most of the battle squad has split off from Nyota’s party to get a start on clearing a path to the larger transporter room, and the smaller segment assigned to freeing the prisoners is taking the way down on the opposite end of the base. 

Moreau and Brighton snap up their guns at five crew members in lab uniforms spilling out of a turbolift. Nyota quickly gathers that none of them are armed and gives a stern motion of her head prodding them to get gone.

As soon as they’re out of sight, Eddie has accessed a service chute that runs vertical and is leaning in with a flashlight. "It's empty."

"Go quietly," Moreau advises, and is the first to go for one of the ladder bars, managing a fluid agility as she starts down the tube. Nyota follows, worried for Eddie for a moment while they’re all without cover; but he follows swiftly enough.

Moreau has to drop her right grip to draw up her rifle and fire before she’s let go of the rope, and her left wrist seems to twist in a bad way as she struggles back up the ladder. Nyota hears an anxious shout from Eddie and wants to know why Moreau doesn't just make the jump, and wonders for another second. Then Moreau coils her legs up and snaps a fall that ends with her hitting somebody; a head takes a hit to the opposite side of the tube wall and when she crawls in she's shielding herself with the unconscious man's body for the moment she needs before she can jump to standing.

Nyota crouches for impact, hits metal, and snatches forward with her weapon on one of two officers still standing so that Moreau points at the other.

“Good day, gentlemen,” Moreau drawls. Behind them Brighton finally catches up with a heavy stomp to the floor. “May I ask why you’re not heading to the shuttles?”

Nyota wants to roll her eyes at her wasting her time by asking that, just before having a flick of realization that it might actually be good to know. “Which of you can release the cell locks?”

“I...we...” The one on the right, pale and white-haired, finally stammers, “we both can.”

Eddie picks one of them and gestures. “Get lost, ice cream.”

The younger one on the left gives a glance at the half-unwrapped ice cream cone melting on his console, then swallows and runs for the corridor to get to the other turbolift. The other officer is turning away from the controls as a few alert rings go off, and as a green flashing appears on several parts of his screen Nyota thinks she can hear a unison hydraulic hiss of locks depressurizing.

Eddie makes a struck grunt before they see the woman in grey who does something to send his firearm skidding forward on the floor. When Moreau and Nyota look up she has his spine straightened back up to kiss his cheek with the barrel of a revolver. Eddie’s eyes settle still along with the rest of the room.

“What do you want?” Moreau demands, her voice a steady slide against her winded breathing.

The woman says, “I want all three—”

A red spot bangs between her eyebrows and she’s curving lifelessly to the floor before Nyota could have seen Moreau raising her smaller sidearm. Eddie seems to start shaking only then in some startled clarity of what just happened, and whatever Nyota’s about to ask gets snapped off by two men coming at them from inside the utility closet, quick and quiet. Nyota fires a stun blast at the first tall movement her eyes pick up, doesn't get out a shout of warning before the other one slams into Moreau from the side.

That far edge of the room is too dark and the hard scuffle is too twisting and risky to try stunning either one before it’s the last resort: Nyota trains her aim here and there. After a couple seconds Moreau’s arm is free and her punch is a precise bite, meeting neck or nose twice, three times. As he’s groggily sinking Moreau goes for her gun, but Eddie shouts, "Knife!" and the man's swipe turns to a painful sound of cartilage chewing up as she blocks it, and kicks him hard. When he still comes back too fast her grunt is one of harassed irritation before she lands a crippling kick at the inside of his thigh, grabs for him falling, then throws him to land his head with a dull gong against the banister on the stairway leading up to the turbolift. He falls, limp, and Nyota and Eddie drop their weapons with sighs.

As Moreau treads back over to examine one of the bodies, Eddie cuts through his stuttered breath to ask, “What did you say your academic focus was?”

“Geospatial analysis. Was what I used to say it was.” Moreau looks up at him for just a second while dumping out the backpack of the man Nyota shot. “Why?” she asks, with something pulling at the corner of her mouth, like they're laughing with each other.

Nyota doesn’t feel so amused. “They’re not in uniform, so who are they? And why were those security guys just sitting ducks down here?”

“We don’t know that they were just _sitting_ there,” Eddie says, but then adds, “I don’t know...That was all pretty weird.”

“Maybe they’re just off duty, alright?” Moreau suggests. “I’m sure we caught a lot of people in the middle of their beauty sleep.” She drops her gaze again to scrutinize a set of knives the man was carrying.

“Then what’s all that shit?” 

“ISF soldiers...half of them like to have flashy weapons on their thighs,” Nyota says. “But why would somebody who's free to go waste their time setting a trap for us?”

“Loyalty?” Moreau says, raising her brows.

“It’s not protecting a warship, though, it’s just a lab,” Eddie says.

“Really, Eddie. If that’s all it was we wouldn’t even be here. Can we move?”

“What if they’re bounty hunters?” Nyota presses. “You don’t think all of that was just a little amateur?”

“You spend a month in the fleet actually watching these grunts do what they do and amateur wouldn’t surprise you,” Moreau says. “And so what if they are? I don't care to push our luck by standing around.”

There’s no rebuke for that, so they do get on with it. Nyota taps onto the general link to tell all the others that anyone who can be disposed to help usher out the prisoners should get down there.

While their initial plans had a lot of concerns about whether the prisoners would be too distrusting and unpredictable, they apparently underestimated how well the aliens would be able to take care of themselves. Gene tried to emphasize this before, that they would have some kind of plan for what to do in the event of a security breach in the hopes of possible escape. She can remember Jim saying, “Yeah, but what if it’s not like where you grew up?” Gene remained insistent on the fact: if there was any ongoing communication among the prisoners, they would have a system. 

As soon as they brace for whatever they’re about to see and open the sound-proof door to the long corridor that runs perpendicular to the cage lines, the roar of hundreds of voices floods to their ears, but it’s not a sound of absolute disorder. At the ends of a couple corridors there are already a couple adults pulling along younger kids, the other several clusters of them arranged as if they’re waiting for someone to come give advisement. 

“What the hell's wrong with their temperature controls down here?” Eddie grumbles off-handedly, while they’re all wordlessly making the call to intercept the first group that makes it to the door rather than crowd in.

Nyota noticed before: it isn’t freezing but it’s way too cold for comfort down on the entire deck, not just in the prison chamber, which does suggest some kind of malfunction. They notice now that the prisoners have been provided with woolen jumpsuits and these flimsy sort of aviator-style hats, which suggests that the temperature isn’t just another factor of the usual neglect.

“Scotty, come in,” she says into her comm piece.

He answers, “Yeah?” only sounding half-distracted, which is peripherally reassuring about the state of the other group.

“Can you think of any technical reason they would feel the need to keep it cold on the whole bottom deck? Could be some sign of the system having a weakness, maybe low energy reserves we should be careful about?”

“Uh, that could affect the transporter functions, but it’s doubtful. There was always a gamble on how responsible they are with their energy anyway, but it is good to know.”

She has to tap off then at the quick approach of a few prisoners; only one of them is Klingon and the rest appear to be Romulan. It actually takes a while to even tell the difference with those hats covering their higher cranial features. They’ve come to a cautious and stunned stand-still, hardly presenting the immediate belligerence Nyota is used to getting from slaves by now, but she knows that doesn’t mean one of them would hesitate to knock them to the wall if it weren’t for the guns.

“We’re here to help get you out,” Nyota says. “Do you all know the way to the central transporter?”

One of them immediately starts shouting back over their shoulder to the following crowds, and the words make her blink in fascination. As someone close behind picks up the message and throws it back behind her, she begins to pick up this flickering mix of Terran standard, Spanish, Romulan and Klingon, with a peppering of Vulcan and possibly some entirely unique words. She wonders if this patois evolved among the servants naturally or if it was designed for secrecy.

One prisoner, a teenage girl, steps forward. “What about the babies?”

Eddie answers, “Somebody else should be going by the nursery. Can you send some people up to help?”

The girl nods and turns to run back, shouting for someone. Moreau is confident enough that this group will be able to take each other in the right direction and says they should start back for the main exit up to the transporter room. 

So much for sending her with this party for her communication skills, Nyota thinks, but it's a relieved feeling. She nods to concede the plan, but she takes one last look down the line of cells, at how many of the imprisoned have their arms crossed against the cold. 

As they've adjusted their direction, Brighton suddenly says, "I tell you what, Miss Moreau."

"What?"

"Fuck this place, and fuck you and me."

"Whatever keeps you focused, Eddie."

 

“In here, right?” Bones asks with a nod in the direction of the biggest lab room.

Jim is already waving him forward as he goes up in the lead. “Careful.”

In a moment Charlie and Jim are the first to bust into the room, clearing the corners with their firearms. One look inward and they’re hit with the sprawling emptiness of the tables. Jim looks back at Bones, stunned.

The doctor growls a curse. “Isn’t this supposed to be the nursery?”

Jim’s jaw sets sharply. “Let’s check for the medicine.”

Scotty blinks. “But this is—”

“I know, just check for the meds.”

Bones leads ahead to the inner core hallway that’s attached to all the lab rooms, pulling open the first of the huge drawers. Empty. 

Jim seethes, kicks at the nearest wall, then puts the plan back together just as fast. “Okay, think. If you were a hidden factory-size output of drugs, where would you be?”

“— _hidden_?” Scotty is muttering to himself as he combs the shelving with his eyes, landing on little more than some knocked-over picture frame and a cracked water bottle.

“I think we should go look around the residential deck, cause that’s the last place we’d expect something like that to be,” Jim says.

“So you still think they expected us?” Bones asks, rough with unease.

Charlie says, “That seems unlikely, Kirk, we’ve encountered minimal resistance since we boarded—”

“That’s exactly why I think something’s going on," Jim says.

“Such as what?” Daar asks, not cynically.

“I don’t know, but think about it; the youngest subjects will be the products of the most advanced work, which makes them the most valuable, and they’re just gone?”

“Ah, no,” Scotty says in deep regret, “you think we’ve totally lost the babies? They took them somewhere else?”

“Listen, they might not have had a clue we have the firepower to destroy the place, if we're lucky. Any ideas?”

“I think the residential floor is a good enough choice,” Daar says. “And Charlie—”

“If we come across another crew member, I can perform another mind meld,” she confirms. “Let’s go.”

As they get moving, Jim moves to comm Moreau, then changes his mind and hails their entire group, saying, “Nyota, come in.”

“Jim, we’ve got all the cells open. On our way back.”

“That’s good; it’s not so good on this end. The meds and all the infants have been moved or else removed from the base.”

There’s a heavy pause on her end. “Okay. What are you doing?”

“We’re going to look up top.”

“...Do you think it's getting more suspicious, Jim?”

“What gave you that idea?” He shakes his head. “Seriously, what gave you the idea, has anything really off happened with you guys?”

“We got rushed by a couple people out of uniform down on the bottom. I can't say whether they were trying to make an arrest. And...I know it’s a small faculty ratio at these places, but it just seems like there should be more _people_...”

“I know, listen, just keep your eyes open, and if you get the chance I want you to ask the prisoners if anything out of the ordinary has gone on recently.”

“Acknowledged.”

“Just keep moving,” he says. This time he leaves the comm channel open, and he can hear the crisp distant noises of the crowds moving to the transporter room as their group crawls back out of the Jefferies tube and spills into the residential floor.

“Psh.” Bones says, “Some digs.”

The deck greets them seemingly by pulling into static the militant noise from the last twenty minutes, the urgent buzz slyly eaten up by the fine patterned carpet that sprawls below their boots. This area is luxurious and serene, far too much like the floor of an embassy hotel to be the kind of stuff you’d see in a medical base back home. 

There are tall sculptures lining the wide hall in the direction they choose to make their way down, some of them decorated soldiers and scientists, some of them not. Scotty cranes his neck back in a creeped-out cringe as they pass by a tall obsidian-looking form of a cloaked doctor wearing a beaked plague mask.

The unexpected advantage is that the doors to the living quarters are consistent with the antique feel, and Scotty quickly discovers they can probably kick them in if needed. They decide to start with the biggest room and work their way down: Charlie gives a couple small blasts to weaken the hinges of the first suite and then lets Jim pound the door in, and they do a cursory clearing of the room, come back out, repeat the process until they’re down to the mid-sized cabins.

At the second one of these, Daar has gone ahead and puts out a hand to say wait, having heard something from within. Just as Jim pauses to a stop, he hears a din of some aria playing in the room, then nods Daar forward. She tries if the door is locked: This is the first one that hasn’t been. She waits briefly for a cue, and then they’re all snapping into the room.

There's a halting at the absurdity of the sight: the music swells politely forward over the shoulders of a blinking and unarmed thin-lipped man in lab attire, who turns to them and away from the sight that makes them all drop their guns at the floor in a sigh: a few dozen sleeping and fussing infants in biobed incubators. 

Jim starts to laugh, in simple high relief. 

“Jim?” Nyota is saying through the comm link, reminding him that she can still hear in on them.

“Uh, we found the nursery,” Jim explains. “And I’m guessing the drugs too. See if you can send some help up here?”

“Roger that,” she replies, sounding a little loosened with relief.

The man in the lab coat, shifting softly on his feet to face them, locks his glance with curious astonishment on Bones. “ _Doctor McCoy_?”

“Oh my God,” Bones exclaims in gruff recognition, “it’s Salinger.”

Jim almost wants to laugh again; he never met Sal in person back home, but he was some kid who worked under Bones during the academy days and Jim never heard the end of how it was just a matter of time before his incompetency got him thrown down the rank stairs. This version of him is addled and stammering. “I thought you were stationed on the flagship now?”

Scotty sniggers then in disbelief. “Boy, you really don’t get much of the news out here, do ya?”

Only then does Salinger gaze as if through a slowly dissipating blur to notice the weapons and their numbers. Jim realizes with half-hearted horror that this guy has got to be stoned to hell on something and probably has been for a while. He asks Bones in congenial concern, “Are we under some kind of attack?”

“Listen, dumbass.” Bones steps forward, snapping his phaser up to tap it once into Salinger’s ribs. “ _You’re_ under attack. Tell us where they moved the drugs and we’ll let you take your leave down to the exit pods.”

“But I don't—”

“ _Now_ ,” Bones barks.

“It’s—here...” 

Salinger twists away and picks up some kind of remote attached to his clipboard, and presses something. A long casket of a hidden compartment hisses up from the floor, joined in unison by another one on the opposite side of the room, a sheen of fog suggesting a refrigerated locker. 

Bones bends down to rip off one lid, revealing an array of med containers. He asks, "How many of these?"

"The last four rooms on the floor have them. Uh, and the minibar in the lounge." Salinger steps back at some benign motion of Charlie's.

Bones turns to the rest and nods. As soon as he senses a flinch from Salinger he points his phaser back up. “Oh, no, you’re gonna help us bag all of it up. _Then_ you can go.”

 

As the marching tangles of the prisoners begin to catch up to them in the hallway, Nyota goes up to a woman who appears to have taken a phaser off of a guard and has it stuffed down the front of her pants along with one of the hats bunched into her waistband. “Hi, can I ask you something?” she asks as they fall into quick steps with each other. She nods. “Can you tell me if anything unusual has happened at the base recently? Just anything out of routine, anything you can think of.”

She obviously finds this to be a strange question and takes a distracted moment to answer, and when she does it seems halfway mocking. “Well, they served us fish the other day. We usually only get poultry if it’s meat, and we get meat about once every seven days.”

Nyota stammers a bit.

“Also, they moved a lot of us around.”

“When?”

“Just in the last day or two. Most of us got put with new cellmates.”

“No idea why?”

“Well, they seemed to be sorting us out by species, but that’s not the way it usually is. Usually it’s in age groups. Other than that, there’s the temp controls shorting out a couple days ago.”

“We noticed that, but those things malfunction all the time...” 

One second or two, and then the thought tugs Nyota to a full stop. Somebody almost knocks into her from behind.

“Why aren't you moving?” It’s Moreau. 

“The hats,” she says.

Moreau flicks a look more directly at her. “What?” 

“The _hats_. Dammit.” Nyota grabs briefly at her arm, keeping her voice very low, snapped with tension. “One of the prisoners said they moved some people around, people were ending up with cellmates they’ve never even seen before...It's an ambush.”

Moreau doesn't get it, then abruptly does get it, pulls Nyota to a stop off in a nook that couches a doorway. “They can’t just have humans passing for—”

“She said the new arrangements were less than two days ago, that’s not very long to have to pass for an alien if they’re just pretending to be unfriendly cellmates.”

Nyota is bracing all over, expecting to have to stop Moreau from taking any sudden actions, but then the next thing the woman says is, “Fuck, where’s Eddie?...Hey, Eddie?”

Moreau said that last over her comm unit, but then her eyes flit at the passersby and she dives, pulling Brighton in with them. Nyota locks fully into vigilance as she flicks her unit back on and says, after a deep breath and no introduction, “Well, the good news is I figured out what’s probably going on.”

There’s a delay before Jim comes out of whatever he’s dealing with to reply, “What is it?”

“You know how I told you the temp controls had gone out on the bottom deck? I think they set that up intentionally so that the prisoners wouldn’t think twice about being given heavier clothing and hats...?”

Jim clings to skepticism the same way Moreau did at first: “Nuh-uh, no. They can’t be...”

“Not many of them, but definitely some of them, I think.”

There’s a long pause on Jim’s end, and when he finally responds again his voice is almost shaky. “You get up here. Find one of the—”

Moreau is about to protest, but Nyota puts up a hand to hold her off, cutting in, “No...Jim, I’m going to stay.”

He lets out a short frustrated groan.

“Listen,” she interrupts. “I think somebody would have already tried to get the jump on us if that was the plan.”

“You said somebody already _did_.”

“We didn't have any back-up, they were taking advantage of the vulnerability; and they didn't make much of an effort to shoot us. They don't have their own vessel here yet, or we would have detected it. If they're waiting, it’s so that they can beam over with us and make the arrest by compromising our ship."

“So it’s a Trojan horse.”

“What can we do about it?” Moreau interrupts. “I hardly think it’ll go well if we just start blazing guns around telling everybody to lose the hats. We can't afford to be throwing the prisoners into a panic right now.”

“I still think you should make your exits.”

“Jim, _no_ ,” Nyota insists again, getting a kind of baffled overwhelmed blink from Eddie over all of this. “Isn't that the fastest way to tip them off to us knowing? We can't let them onto the vessel, especially not before we have the chance to get back.”

“Keep walking, then,” Jim says, finally relenting, “keep blending in. Just, we’ll have to figure out a way to slice these humans out of the crowd.”

“ _How_?” Eddie demands.

“Working on it,” Jim says. “Just keep calm.”

 

Jim falls into a panicked mutter of curses as soon as he turns off his comm piece, and then his gaze lands in confusion on Bones. “What are you doing?”

Bones doesn’t answer him for a while as he flicks a few commands onto the computer screen he dove to while Jim was still talking to the others, and Jim can see that he’s going to need some security clearance for whatever he’s trying to do and gives an insistent pointing to Salinger.

“What?” Salinger stammers as Daar grabs him out of his shrugging in the far chair. He’s been giving barely adequate answers to their questions before blinking back into some doped daydream, while a handful of prisoners come and go with babies all the while giving him darkly smug expressions, or an occasional wad of spit on his shoes. When he’s ushered closer to what Bones is doing, he says, “Ah, nuh...I don’t have that kind of clearance. I’m—”

Charlie shocks at his back with her gun barrel, but Jim has been scrutinizing Salinger for something else, and meets her eyes. "Take a peek at him."

"A meld?" Charlie lowers her gun but looks ready to cuff the man's arms if he flinches at the idea.

"He doesn't seem to know much, but could you give it a try?"

With a nod she edges Salinger away from the rest of the group, just as the computer voice Jim was half tuning out is heard proclaiming, “Voice identification needed: State your name.”

“Leonard McCoy.”

A pause and then a beep of verification that makes the doctor’s shoulders stiffen up shortly. “Welcome back to Third House Medical Base, Doctor McCoy,” the computer states, and Jim and Scotty meet each other’s looks.

Scotty almost blurts something, but Jim holds his arm.

The computer says, “Please provide personal password for confidential lab data.”

Bones mouths a sharp curse, scraping a hand into his hair.

“They’ll have wiped it, won’t they?” Scotty says. “Even if you did know it...”

“Maybe not,” Daar says, intent with small faith as she watches over their shoulders.

After a nervous but also fractionally confident pause, Bones declares, “Password: ‘kangaroo.’”

The computer blinks a green light. Scotty hisses, “How the _hell_ —”

“ _Shh_. Computer: I need all data if any is available on testing of substance exposure across both Terrans and alien species.”

“Data found,” the computer replies. “Standing by for parameter search.”

Daar holsters her weapon and says, “I’m going to start helping with the children.”

Bones waves her off with “Good, but I might need Charlie,” browsing rapidly through a spreadsheet he just got up.

Scotty and Jim carry another wordless exchange, hesitating to intrude on whatever he’s doing. The last of the people sent up to help them seem to have taken their cues to head back down, giving them a break from having to calm anyone else's panic. Charlie has finished with Salinger, having prompted him to go when Jim gave the nod that it was okay. It's fair to assume she'd share anything from the meld that was important enough to interrupt with immediately, but her unchanged calm only makes the tension more jarring, seeming to confirm once and for all that Nyota's suspicions are right; she saw enough to know that. Jim looks over as her head is turning a considering tilt at the portrait of some founder's family hung on the wall by the entrance, before she takes out the adhesive bottle and slabs a bunch of glue onto one of the faces, starts mounting a bomb pod onto it. 

Finally after the silence lasts long enough for things to start feeling unbearably inert, Bones snaps a finger at the screen, muttering something under his breath that sounds like “Bingo night.”

He looks over at Charlie: “Do you think you can come up with a way to auto-detonate a hypo cartridge so that it releases as a gas?”

“For what?” she asks, shifting her rifle over her shoulder.

“We need to release a substance that’s innocuous to any of the non-Terrans on board but can put a human on the ground in a matter of seconds.”

Jim’s leaning into his research. “They actually found something like that?”

“The best I’ve got is more of a mild sedative, but it should put them out for a few minutes at least, and it kicks to the system fast."

Charlie says, “It won’t be very scientific, but I think I can create some high-pressure dispensers by attaching the cartridges to atmospheric control pumps, so that a strong impact would set them off.”

“Molotov hyposprays,” Scotty marvels absently.

“Where do we get these pumps?” Bones asks.

Scotty interrupts, “I know what you’re talking about, Charlie, we can get them out of the control units in the suites. Of course we’ll also be needing gas masks?”

Jim says, “We’ll double back to the workers' transporter room and beam the stuff over directly to them."

“It will be a good area for triggering the explosives anyhow, once everyone is moving out," Charlie offers, and catches Jim's question before he asks it. With a nod she says, "Salinger knew more than he indicated, if not very much. The bounty hunters didn't divulge to Third House quite the size of the expected siege, or that it would personally involve any of you famous Imperial defectors."

Jim tries to work it out. "They didn't want them to send too many soldiers?"

Bones says, "They wouldn't want the money intercepted. Imperial forces hold protection and ownership over the base but Third House is its own corporate entity; their people don't give enough of a shit about taking us down to put the stock at risk. That's how the hunters tied their hands: they were probably told through some anonymous contact that if they warned any higher-ups about this assault, the hunters wouldn't disclose any specifics about when or where they could expect us. They promise just enough of a share to the handful of soldiers stationed here, and everybody's mum." In response to Jim's nervous get-on-with-it gesture, he says, "The point I think we're getting to is that those prisoners probably won't be harmed by any of them, if there's a deal they're honoring.

Charlie says, "But they will be recaptured, if we fail to stop them getting onto our ship, that is certain."

Jim's eyes flit between them. "They won't even fire at the prisoners?...When they probably know the place is blowing up anyway?"

"Certainly, when they have any chance to get them out?" Charlie says. "They stand to lose everything if they cause more trouble than promised; if Third House decides to notify authorities that they withheld this kind of information from official channels, and make it sound like they only just arrived, there wouldn't be any reason to suspect they were withholding anything themselves."

"They're already on thin ice," Bones agrees, "if they didn't make it clear they're dealing with the biggest bounties out there. Wiping out even a couple of their prime slaves—"

"—This is a really dubious assumption to form the plan around, in my book," Jim says evenly. "It could mean the difference between getting these people to safety and using them for cover."

"Kirk, there is no time to form another plan," Charlie says, her tone only gentle enough to be sobering. "They want you alive, so if anyone goes down, I'd venture it's a stun setting, or else they're aiming for non-lethal hits. There's no way to prevent them from boarding without first showing them we know what's happening, and the biggest risk to the prisoners right now is the possibility of even one of them boarding with us."

Jim finally realizes it's probably not like he or Nyota imagined, that no one's planning to take a hostage with a gun to the head and tell them where to direct the ship. He's thinking of that minuscule tracking device Commander Spock put on them a couple years ago; someone only has to drop one anywhere on the ship, and no matter how many enemy Terrans are thrown off the vessel, they're done. And reinforcements will have been on the way for a while. They're running out of time.

“She's right,” Jim says, and there's a collective motion of restless relief just at the agreement, but he adds, “We don't ask Larada's squad for assistance, though. We get a couple of them to meet us down a level, hand over the med supplies and say to keep to the plan no matter what happens. They're here to safely extract the prisoners, not worry about us. If these guys start shooting, that's our problem. There's no bounty on Moreau, but I'm guessing she'll beam over when Brighton does...As for you, Charlie, it's entirely up to you."

"Thank you," she says, with a small movement at the corner of her mouth, "but I'll remain with the squad as long as I can."

"Let's get moving then. Get the others up to speed, and help get Charlie her toys.”

 

“Come in, ops. This is Uhura.”

“Receiving,” comes a dim response through the humming spacial interference. It’s Gene manning the main comm.

Having debated whether it was possible somebody was monitoring all the ship’s general communications from wherever the reinforcements are lurking and deciding it was very likely, she takes a breath. “The captain has ordered us to wait until he’s back with the second party to beam anyone over.”

She has no alibi for why Jim would possibly think that’s a good change of plans; the key here is that she hasn’t referred to him as “the captain” in years and just maybe even Gene will notice that that’s strange. They haven’t developed a code word for anything like this, and it’s the best she can do.

His response, she thinks, is just a little too measured to be the real him. “Did he explain why?” he asks testily.

“I didn’t get the chance to ask. Maybe they figured out it would avoid taxing the energy reserves somehow.”

“...Okay. You might be right.”

“I’m busy, Gene.”

“Standing by.”

As soon as she looks forward again she realizes they’re nearing the transporter room, and she’s taking in how she's never seen a beaming pad so huge in her life once they’re through one of the several entrances to the round echoing room. It seems to confirm its usual occupants are regarded as numerous cattle.

“Right here,” Moreau checks in tersely from over her shoulder, on the move to drag Nyota with her to an area she’s already scoped out for some relative form of cover. It’s a kind of dispatcher’s balcony seat built in next to the stairs, which she sees lead to some colorfully decorated lounge area. Brighton is already sitting on the floor next to the swivel seat; Moreau crouches down next to him and Nyota takes a knee across from them. All they can do is wait.

After a minute Eddie asks, “Is your wrist okay?”

Moreau blinks up at him, as if needing a moment to realize he’s talking to her. “What?”

He barely pokes at her forearm, and Nyota remembers the strain her hand took on their way down the tunnel; she must have been favoring her other hand, for Eddie to notice. 

Moreau looks like she's can't quite reach for any flippant wit for such a mundane question. And she doesn’t get out an answer before, in what feels both belated and too soon, Nyota hears from Jim again through her earpiece. 

“Now,” is all he says.

She waves along the others and gets up as fast as she can without the risk of drawing too much attention. They trim their way through the groups that have been keeping off the elevated transporter pad, and wait just at the bottom. A couple figures standing on the platform move away from the middle as the forms begin to shiver in. A few in the crowd seem to go tautly alert, some others merely curious: Jim and Leonard materialize facing slightly to their left, Charlie and Scotty just behind them. All four are carrying duffels. Nyota’s grasp readies around her phaser as the four move, cavalier, towards their side of the pad as soon as Jim spots them.

It happens in a series of planned movements, all of them knowing that the sudden dive for action will set off some chain, not really knowing the shape it will take. Her duffel is thrown to her by Jim just before he starts to grab into his own bag; she plunges her hand in to pull out the gas mask, letting the bag drop as she manages to strap it on without compromising her grip on her gun.

As soon as she looks up she sees the stark unveiling happening in the crowd: her senses flash at several motions that foretell some violent ascent, and she hoists up the first gas spray and pitches it towards a figure close by who’s getting into his jacket. The impact is almost synchronous with another one that lands hard to the floor, thrown by Charlie, and there she sees the nearly invisible mist crawling up and seizing the movements of a couple people just close by. One Klingon gapes in confusion, watching the two figures slipping groggily, collapsing into rough sleep, just as on the opposite end of the room a woman lets out some shout of warning; Leonard is the one who lunges for her and throws another spray bomb, and the hood is finally thrown back as the other still conscious humans in the foray begin to fire. 

“Spread it out!” Jim is hollering over the comm, the command almost drowned in the rise of panic through the throngs. His shout strains louder, "Prisoners keep to the pad! Anyone unconscious is an impostor!"

After a matter of seconds the urge to get cover bites to the bone; the periphery’s blocked by the mask and she feels nakedly blind as the shots pick up. The wasp nest has been dropped and they can’t even see the swarms. Her shoulder bruises and drags fast around a thin pillar and she moves low around the brief cover to get behind the balcony’s stairwell. She unpacks and tosses another gas canister so that it detonates in the far corner close to a tall metal webbing in the wall she hopes must be a vent. In another couple seconds she pops around to look for more suspicious action; without the chance to see much of anything except a good few of the prisoners grasping closer together, she ducks back down at the crack of a few more shots. Old-fashioned bullets, her mind supplies. Bounty hunter toys, typically.

After going back to cover, she runs mentally through the image she got: the transporter pad about to engage, and she thought she might have seen Moreau urging Eddie up to it with her. Good: someone on the other side to explain what's happening.

The shots have died out, for now. She leaps up at the same time that Charlie appears up at her right running towards her, ready to grab her by the arm. Nyota takes the cue to let her cover for her; she isn’t wearing a mask and can see better for both of them. They move almost back-to-back towards the center, where she sees Scotty and Daar moving the same way, both of them sparing the motions to urge people to stay on the beaming pad so they can get to safety.

“Jim?” she says into her comm, looking around. “Leonard?”

“I’m on your nine,” Jim replies, at the same time she hears a more vague grunt of confirmation from Leonard. She looks more to her immediate left to see that Jim is clearing along the far wall to look for any hiding impostors, and a small amount of her dread lifts away, her grip loosening just slightly on her weapon as she attempts to take in a steadying breath.

“Be careful,” Charlie says, pausing to punch something into the detonation remote. “A lot of them could have resumed cover just by breathing into their shirts. Some of the gas bombs were weaker than others."

It seems like it has taken forever to set up the next beaming party when somebody gives the order for the Nyrok vessel to engage transport and a good majority of the people in the room are finally tucked away. The final party is quicker to organize themselves, and even though she hasn’t dared to relax just yet, the attack still comes on quick and ugly.

The first two come charging in from one of the small dark corridors, butting Scotty with a rifle hard enough to knock him down just before Bones fires and then throws himself into cover around the curve of the platform, probably before even knowing Nyota managed to take one of them down. Following a tight roundabout to approach them, Jim ends up right on Nyota’s shoulder and reports to her that two more just came in while they’re ducking tightly behind the crowds. 

“They must have just beamed on,” she says, “that means they’ve got a quick out. Did you see if they have gas masks?”

“ _Take the party, Gene, take them now_ ,” Jim is hollering into communications. “Dammit, they've got a ship here now.”

And with that, most of the obscuring bodies evaporate with the hiss of the transporter; Nyota can’t even tell who’s left, with how quickly they’ve balked into hiding. Without any further report to glean from what they can see, she and Jim automatically slide off to cut around the curve of the room’s lower level.

Gene’s voice crackles into their ears: “It’s five of you. Be on the transporter pad in twenty seconds, you hear?”

“Roger that,” Jim mutters, and without any kind of warning to Nyota, he doubles up and slaps one hand and a foot on the stairway to lever himself into taking off running right across the pad, and she hears a shot, some body hitting down and he yells something starting with, “Scotty, here—!” just before a slam of motion right from Nyota’s left punches up her shock.

But it’s Charlie having just hit right into her shoulder, and far over her head to the left Nyota sees the figure approaching and locks her aim to take him down just after a shot comes heart-stoppingly close. But her own fear is forgotten as she realizes the body collapsing like a puppet right into her. 

“Charlie?”

There is still one more out there, one more that’s after them but suddenly all Nyota is aware of is the shock instilled in Charlie’s dark eyes, which tells her everything before she can even notice the sticky spreading of the wound leaking above her hip. 

“Oh, no.” Nyota gets behind to grab her up under the arms. “No, no, no..."

And then Leonard is there, helping to lever her up the short stairway and onto the pad where Scotty is trying to aim in every direction at once, finding the wound to put pressure on, and Gene is giving the countdown from three. She’s barely aware as the fade happens, just comes through with a blank panic making her yell for help even as Leonard is grabbing a medic tricorder and trying for any reassuring signs. She scrambles to move up and do something but her hands seem to glide away everywhere on slick sickening green and the massive roar of the crowd is messy around them as everyone tries to bustle out of or into the too-small transporter room. 

Gene appears, shouting something woeful and coming down to the floor. It’s against Leonard’s protests, but she is dying, so he finally backs up, encouraged by Scotty's touch to his shoulder, to allow the young man to grab up and cradle the woman in his arms. 

Frozen and numb, Nyota finally looks around. “Where’s Jim?”

The three of them are struck slow, Leonard searching the crowd with wide eyes. “He was right there with you, wasn’t he?”

“Before...” A sick hiccup in her voice: “They need to call off the bombs, we need more time—”

“Charlie was supposed to detonate it manually; otherwise it’s set to blow one minute after the remote goes idle, that means as soon as she beamed off—” He frantically checks the chronometer on the tricorder, but she’s already scrambling up and screaming Gene’s name as she remembers this part of the plan in a terrible blow, because yes, of course they had accounted for the possibility of anyone’s death, including Charlie’s.

After that it’s a blur: The ship rattles up, ready to get clear of the explosion, and she tears herself white-minded towards the beaming controls, suddenly sure that he’s just there on the other pad, waiting for them to engage. The crowd is a hard sea around her. When Lyd refuses to call off their exit, Nyota does something that makes her run into a wall of resistance that’s Alel hugging her arms to her sides, trying to get something through to her in a rapid spill of Romulan; but nothing reaches her ears. The room is washed up in monochrome like a tidal wave crashed down upon it and there is no distinguishing between whatever consolation he is attempting at her ear—that Jim has still, what, fifteen seconds to get on that pad—and a vague noise of crying from the direction of where Charlie is lying. Nyota begins to howl, a wordless miserable damnation—

Eleven seconds. Ten. Nine...

 

The armed figure who bluntly yanked Jim off of the transporter pad at the very last second before transport could be male or female, it’s impossible to tell through the tinted gas mask, but Jim’s been vying to either disarm them or knock them out cold.

Twice now he’s attempted to lunge for the pad; the first time his boot caught a spill of something slick that bruised him starry against the side of the stairs even worse than when he was first shoved down, and the second time the asshole tripped him up with a snatch at his bag. 

Turning in a twist, he motions to lose the bag, then changes his mind in the middle of the motion, turns the strap around his hand, swings the full weight and slams it where it should hurt. In this moment, two things happen: a couple of the hypo bombs clatter out of the bag and start rolling across the floor, and then the two of them see at the same time where his gun landed earlier.

The kick makes his whole body a lightning rod of pain: Jim’s head snaps back, and then his gas mask is landing a foot or two away from his head. 

The gun is one lunge away, the mask about the same in the opposite direction. 

He goes for the gun. A few bullets start to thunder over the sedative bombs. 

He will know later, for sure, that he made the effort to hold his breath, that he got as far as lifting the weapon, at least. But after that it's all a blank goodbye.


	9. The Fable of the Grieving King

 

When he comes to, he's sprawled in a back side seat of something that reminds him of the old away mission shuttles, with the long narrow window along each side and a smooth low ceiling leading down to a cockpit that barely seats two. It's no telling what kind of vessel they used to beam him away; Jim wonders if it was damaged when Third House went up. He has a second of surprise that he isn't even tied down, but then blinks up and sees a man spread leisurely in one of the other back seats, pointing a gun at him.

He's a somewhat rangy man, middle aged and beginning to grey against the sandy color of flat long hair, and he's effortlessly menacing in the lax hold on the weapon. Jim is the milk he's bringing home; where it came from is nothing to throw a party about.

The reality of this, what he didn't have a chance to take in before he was knocked out, threatens to throttle before he makes a grim friend of it. He can bend and warp it into the relief of not having to wonder anymore, once he gets some time alone with it, but he's probably going on the hook and sooner rather than later.

"'lo," he says.

The man takes some signal that Jim isn't about to try anything and the pistol seems to lower a bit. He nods and says, "My name's Sean Creevey."

"I'm not interested." Jim sits up a bit more. "Guess I'm not going to bother fumbling in my holster to see if you took my lucky gun..."

"You mean this thing?" Creevey holds up the pistol that Jill made, and Jim hears a chuckle from the other side of the huge cockpit chair; this was apparently the topic of a laugh while Jim was out. "Funny-looking thing."

"It's pretty fuckin ugly, let's say it," Jim says, and the other two are laughing like it's a friendly taxi talk, "but it's my lucky gun. Any chance of getting it back unloaded?"

With what actually looks like sincere regret, Creevey shakes his head. "Sorry."

"I'm going to ask you until you get really sick of hearing about it."

"We could always shut you up."

"Oh, well. Good luck torturing me for information when I have my mouth stuffed."

For a moment Jim and Creevey and the pilot all look outside and every single star around them has nothing to say. "It's a little early," Creevey tries, "to assume that torture will be necessary."

"Where exactly are you planning on turning me in? Terra? One of the central embassies? And we're at least a couple weeks out. That's plenty of time and space to get something else useful out of me, so if you guys could spare me the hospitality. I know what you're going to do."

Creevey observes him for a moment longer, it's hard to guess what for since Jim returns his glance to a sober contemplation of the rust-colored floor under his boots. His laces are untied, the leather barely kissing at his ankles; they even searched his shoes, of course. Finally Creevey responds to something the guy in the cockpit has to say, and for the next long while he's more or less ignored.

There’s no chronometer he could check to watch for time passing by, but he doesn’t really feel he has much reason to be calculating how long they’ve been sitting in the tiny ship. He can’t say how many minutes or even hours he’s been eavesdropping by detached rote before he hears something interesting: they’ve made contact with whatever ship they’re headed to rendezvous with, and Creevey switches the speaker of his comm off to pick it up to his ear, glancing almost furtively back at Jim, who just cocks him a sardonic look.

“What the _fuck_?” Creevey hisses. “We just picked him up a week ago, he’s _on board_ with _you_.”

Creevey exchanges some baffled look with his co-pilot, who may be picking this up on his earpiece, before pacing a few steps backwards to sit against the railing of the small staircase leading into the cockpit, squinting at somebody’s reply on the other side of the transmission.

“I don’t know. How hard can it be to carve up a decent decoy? Where did you get this other guy anyway?”

As he gets his reply, he casts another glance back at Jim, who realizes he’s trying to see if he looks like he can make any sense of this, as if there’s any real indication of what the hell they’re talking about. Jim has a feeling he’ll find out in due time, and for now concentrates on looking disinterested.

“Look, you just sit tight until I get a look at this mess myself. I swear to God, Paul...Yes, I heard. Congratulations on not dying.” Then Creevey slams down the comm piece. “Christ, I just want this job to be over.”

 

Jim’s eventually beamed onto a ship after they make contact and throw him into a pair of handcuffs, and quickly figures it’s a connection on the way to some bigger vessel as this one looks a little too domestic. It’s set up a lot like the _Ulysses_ in both the layout and the cozy little touches: the scrapped-up easy chair kicked under the transporter room console, the souvenir magnets lining a metallic swinging door to what has to be the kitchen. He’s a tad wrung into unease to see what looks like a child’s bedroom off to one side when he’s pushed by the beaded curtains in the threshold, but is able to surmise there are no kids on board and the room is probably only there for taking the ship out on a holiday. He tries, hardly for the first time, to picture family life dancing on unfettered through this world: picnics and pool parties and Junior’s first day of school, somehow coexisting with an acceptance of the things that come on the broadcast and the public whippings on street corners. A trite line of mystery, to be sure, but no matter how often the question may have been asked by buzzed history majors back when he was still in San Francisco, he couldn’t remember ever arriving at a satisfying answer.

They lock him up in what ends up being their second washroom; all things considered, this is hardly the worst treatment, since he would have hardly counted on the promise of a toilet and running water—and it’s probably bigger than the half-bath the four of them had in Asheville, he remembers, then decides he doesn’t want to remember anything about that; not Nyota singing scales over the steaming mist while he brushed his teeth and drew her a picture in the fog on the mirror. The four of them. Four. He draws that number across his mind like a talisman and then leaves the other memories alone.

They throw him a pillow and nothing else, slamming the door up tight. There are countless other things he has to try not to think about, but sooner or later, somehow, he does sleep.

 

His leg gives out of its cramped digging into the door when it noisily swings open, pulling Jim out of his long stare of a dream. He doesn’t recognize the muscular woman who’s come to collect him for whatever reason, and wonders how many other residents are around living in the couple other rooms he saw.

“My name’s Helen,” she says, achieving something perfectly in-between friendliness and coldness that still is too musical to be flat, as if she just thought the walls could use a fresh coat of her voice. “You’re invited to come have dinner with us.”

He pushes himself up on his hands, blinking as he wonders if he even cares what kind of game this is. “I’ll eat in here,” he replies.

“You will eat with us or you won’t eat at all. I trust you can find your way to the table.” Leaving him to further mull over this with her playfully old-fashioned wording, she starts down the hall, leaving his door wide open.

He slowly grabs for purchase of the sink top to get off the floor, and some minutes later he finds himself seated in front of a dish ripe for a special occasion: big hunks of meat that smell like steak Diane, a pretty arrangement of roasted root vegetables and long beans drawn around the opposite curve of the plate, and silverware set up with the measured care fitting for a table at some political banquet. Candles flicker from atop a tall candelabrum at the center of the long old-looking wood, illuminating the faces of Sean Creevey and Helen sitting at the ends, and four other strangers seated around the table.

Sitting close together across from him are two light-haired bounty hunters he initially assumed were spouses but after a couple more minutes he supposes might actually be related. Next to them is the man who was piloting the shuttle the day before, and next to Jim is a dark, round-cheeked woman who glides her painted nails idly over her silverware. On the farther side of her plate, as if laid down in the same ritual of setting the table, is her gun, the only object in the room that glints off of Jim’s status as a hostage.

He does eat. Surely he needs all the food he can get despite being unable to feel hungry, but since he sat down he knew for sure this show of generosity was either for the benefit of their own comforts and calculated righteousness or was just a way to watch him squirm uneasily while they gnawed on their meat; he quickly decided that the latter was probably much more true, and then resolved that playing along a little too well was the best he could do for it, since they’re all probably fully expecting he’ll be lucky if he even keeps down what he bites off. When one of the first matters of conversation is the blond woman complaining to Helen that her steak is too done, Jim offers, “Here, mine’s still pink,” and lifts his plate to trade with her, cutting off and biting into a heavy piece with every picture of eagerness after she hands it down.

As far as dinner table gossip goes, the scandal they’re discussing is pretty mundane: the pilot—his name is Kay, or possibly he just goes by the letter ‘K’—has a cousin who’s gotten caught out for getting pregnant from some one-off affair several years after convincing the husband the daughter was his own. Jim keeps waiting for the segue into some kind of conversation that might feel more typical to the gun-for-hire clique or whatever he might have imagined they would be. Either they’re such good friends they have plenty else to talk about, which seems unlikely, or they can’t completely rely on the assumption that Jim’s never making it out with whatever information they shouldn’t discuss outside of the party, which seems ludicrously optimistic for him.

By the time the blond man and woman have, with a brief but eerie synchronicity, put their silverware down after their last bites and then aerated their glasses of wine, Helen is telling a filthy joke that makes the woman with the gun finally crack a satisfied smile, and Kay picks up after that with a real story told with all the obvious lies that make it into a good joke. Jim tunes out somewhere around the bigoted levity about Vulcan’s apocalypse, but does pay attention to the fact that the blondies used to run some kind of con operation that involved diverting slave shipments, until Mazel’s law made it not just unlawful theft but that intimidating euphemism of “politically undesirable” to get caught with any unlicensed servants; the implication was that you could get in much deeper trouble these days for freeing a slave than for stealing one, and to hell with the risk of them not knowing the difference.

When Helen finally addresses him he's startled, cut off balance right back into being sick to his stomach just at the acknowledgment.

“Mr. Kirk, we’re not being very good hosts if you haven’t been offered any of the wine.”

The blond guy starts to pick up the bottle, but Jim swerves his hand in every semblance of gracious refusal. “Thanks,” he says, “but I don’t drink when I’m alone.”

The affront stills them, barely. The bottle is set a little too slowly back down, and Helen fixes him with a concentrated stare. He meets it with a wall of a smile, and finally she says, “How about a good yarn from you, then?”

“Oh.” He gives his best mockery of some humble laugh. “I’m sure I don’t have any stories that would impress any of you.”

“I’d like to hear something from the turncoat,” Kay adds in, nodding. “Even if it’s just a joke. Surely the napes have their own fare of jokes we’ve never heard.”

One of the candle flames snaps up, briefly licking a reflection in the gun sitting two plates over, catching Jim’s vision. He clears his throat and says the first thing that comes to mind. “Well. There’s one, but it’s really more of a...folk tale.”

"Fine,” the blond man says, with a hint of teeth so white Jim has the disorienting sensation of a camera’s flash going off.

“Okay...” For a second his mind has gone so terrifyingly blank that he feels lodged in the middle of two looming useless thoughts he won’t be able to scramble out of, but he recovers, sitting up to throw his cloth napkin down on the table. “So this nobleman...or whatever he is. Let’s just say he’s a king. He goes out one day to peruse the local market galleries; he’s a man who gets out of his palanquin every once in a while, which is why he always has a close trusted bodyguard with him. Only on this day, he’s only known his bodyguard for one hundred days, because his other guard was recently killed protecting him.”

He waits for someone to get immediately bored and derail from him, feels drowning in the silence, but continues.

“Now, it was always well known that the previous guard was a very good friend to him, as well as to the queen, and in fact, he had known both of them for the same amount of time, down to the day. There’s...something in the story about how that symmetry was always very sacred to them; he would make toasts like...‘To my wife and my guard, both of whom I have loved for a hundred long years.’”

“A hundred years?” Helen interjected.

Jim stammered, “They're like...comparable to a race of demi-gods in the mythology.”

“Ah,” the blond man says, returning to the table from getting up for something and planting a kiss at the temple of his bookend.

“So anyway, he’s been grieving a long while for his friend, never going out for a long time because he doesn't have the protection. But he and his queen have finally decided it’s time to move on, and they appoint this new guard who seems good and honorable enough, even if he couldn’t ever replace the other guard.” Jim feels like a court jester who’s been commanded on a whim to stop and take off all his clothes. He’s always liked this story, and he’s now desperately regretting that he hadn’t thought of one of the many bizarre jokes Gaila used to tell when she got drunk. “And in a dark turn of events, a group of bandits far outnumbering the royal party end up attacking them when they’re out at the market, just robbing and killing whoever they can get to, and then disbanding in many different directions to draw out any survivors who pursue them. The king survives, but both his wife and his new guard are murdered in the attack, and he sees that the man who kills his new protector takes off northward, while the one who cut the throat of the queen goes south...With no hesitation, the king pursues the bandit going north. He manages to track him down and slay him; some of the other king’s men went after his wife’s murderer, but that man was never found.”

Several eyebrows may be cocking around the table, but Jim doesn’t really care to look.

With a slight nod, he continues: “So of course when the king meets with his counsel, there is one man who can’t help asking: ‘Why is it that when you could have tried to avenge the death of your queen, whom you have loved for a hundred long years, you chose instead to avenge the death of a man you had only known for a hundred days?’

“...And the king said: ‘I had to avenge the guard because I now can never love him for a hundred years.’”

Glad to be done with it, Jim sits back slowly. The woman next to him has lit a cigarette, and she lets out a long puff of smoke with an air of curious consideration.

After a pause, Kay says, “I don't get it.” 

Creevey snaps his fingers at him. "I forgot to ask you, did you win the bet off that son of a bitch you met at the flea market?"

The conversation derails back into grey noise for Jim, and in the midst of it Helen stands up to show him back to his locked room. He should feel glad to get away, but everywhere is getting heavy and tiring, and he is understanding too palpably now the truth of what he’d intimated before. He is completely and utterly alone, and he may never not be alone again.

 

They don’t attempt that pretense again. There are still a couple surprises. When he’s led off to what looks like a rarely used office, the walls around him are dim in the fluorescent light and rusted in what looks like long licks of blood; he’s looking for the sharp objects, or one of those neurological agony devices he saw aboard the _Enterprise_ during that first week and still shudders at the thought of now, or maybe a branding phaser they’re planning on threatening to take to his testicles.

The bucket of water sits in the middle of the room in front of the one chair. Archaic. Straightforward. Certainly not the only thing they have planned.

Helen asks him where the colony is.

He tells her, “I’ve forgotten already.”

She doesn’t bother with Creevey’s decorations about all of this not being _necessary_ , if only you would comply, as if he’s got any reason to sell the only thing left that’s worth anything to him on the promise of some utterly temporary comfort. She just waves Kay forward from the corner. 

He’s a big guy, and Jim is a rag doll slapped to the bottom of the bucket.

He starts to feel the fuzzy sting hitting him in the eyes and nose, quite a bit sooner than he even begins to feel his lungs yelling. That startle makes him lose his concentration, but it doesn’t matter: at his first cough, he’s being lifted up again, quickly enough for him to realize the primary purpose here isn’t about the threat of drowning.

He restrains himself from asking what the hell they put in there.

Then he notices it, the sandy brightly colored particles floating in phlegmy bubbles collected on the surface. It has to be that blue shit they had back at the colony, and Jim feels like telling them he’s heard on good authority that it’s not good for any kind of torture, but then almost all at once the slightest blur quakes into the edges of his vision.

Shouldn’t tell them anyway, he’s thinking. The drug shipments might be traceable to somewhere close to the colony and better to keep them in the dark... 

Something in his brain like a first kernel of popcorn popping...

“They call it ‘siren’ over on Elami IV,” Helen is saying, and her voice already sounds clouded out a bit. “Have you heard of it? They call it that because of the noise...Well. You'll know what I mean.”

He shrugs, puts on a cringing laugh. “You gotta be kidding me with this."

"It can't be that bad, right?" Her smile barely swerves up in his blurring perception. “We’ll see, Kirk.”

 

His best guess is nine days, but he’s seemingly way beyond a ball-park estimation. They get him high, bring him down long enough to make him eat a couple crackers and then ask him the questions again, and it’s back into the dust. Helen gives up on the more elaborate means of force and makes him sip or lick up some of the drug on his own, though this only works a couple times, because after they start up on the heavier doses he quickly realizes he’d rather take a grinding beating than get another one.

It doesn’t break down inhibitions more effectively than any other form of torture, but it is definitely sufficient enough for a psychological belting. Back home, experimental drug use was only a sort of occult thing, but when he was a bored farming brat in Riverside there was one weekend when somebody’s rail-thin cousin had come visiting with something from a supplier whose chemist friend had pared down the source to something harmless but hard to get right. Hallucinogens that made the sounds of an old film on the screen splash colorful bursts into his vision (he remembers there was a species trying to get into the Federation at the time, mentioned that night because they were all synesthesiacs). Jim can imagine a heightened form of that drug being overwhelming enough, and not even much different from the fever dust, in the way the room pops and floats out to him in images like a high-strung and too-clear dream.

What’s torturous is the extremes, the tandems between one type of hallucination and another; the way no matter how many times it happens, his mind can be lured into the safety of a soft fantasy before he’s thrown under the wave into the most vicious crawls of nightmare.

Those same old candles in Gaila’s room, the ones she’d get out from a box under the bed and light when all the other lights were out, only tonight Nyota crawls in next to him, blows out all the candles and they do a little bit of soaring, trying not to make a sound because someone is in the next bed, of course; a half-groan is escaping her mouth which he covers with his hand, heart hammering high and tense now, they shouldn’t, can’t, they wouldn't. The body is stirring awake in the next bed and as the head is turning up it has black hair, sharp points of ears.

The jolt comes: black ocean cracks through the windows like the dormitory’s underwater and he feels the scream of suffocation in his lungs as the room fills and fills and fills up, tries to hold her up to swim to a surface with him. He somehow does not drown but feels her go limp against his grasp; and then like the room was rising in an elevator the water line sinks and flows out. She lies in his arms, soaked, and he sees the sharp bruise from a rope around her neck. Looks up and startles, whimpering up against the headboard at Bones’ and Scotty’s open and calmly deceased masks, their bodies dripping and swinging from the nooses tied to those old rafters.

Desires, fears, then back again. Some pastoral beauty and then blood. He comes out of the terrifying wave like a drowning man meeting the right side of a lifeboat, taking it into a frantic grasp, oh please, oh please; after a while the pleasant notions and places are such a terrible serenity that he wants to sob at their arrival as much as at their leaving. He can feel his better memories sinking into that feeling for good, forever tainted. Later he doesn’t even remember much, just as with a dream, but he remembers his mother’s hand careful and reassuring at his forehead, that time he was seven and woke up with the flu. He thinks, if I can just cling on hard enough this time, if I can hold it in my mind just right...

And the noise. The ringing in his head is perpetual but usually it’s actually right when he tips over into coming down that it starts to really punch, laying down the law on his head as he’s just starting to put his thoughts straight. God knows how long this part of it is; it could be minutes that feel like hours, the way a shrill note is blaring right next to his ear but comes from nothing, is nothing but in his mind and will not stop. Usually at this point the mental stress knocks him clear out into black woozy sleep. He wakes up foggy and the whole cycle begins again.

“Where’s the colony?”

His hands are trembling hard in his lap. “I don’t remember.” At this point he’s thrown the knowledge so far back he almost thinks he wouldn’t remember if he did try.

“Why don’t you just tell us the rendezvous point?” is the next question; they’re trying to serve him up some idea that if he at least gets them to the Nyrok vessel, they’ll go for the colony from there and let him and his friends go. After a point, Jim wonders if there’s a chance this operation is just mom-and-pop enough for that to work, but then in the midst of his attempt to make sympathetic reason-with-me arguments for why Jim shouldn’t be so insistent to defend the inhabitants of the colony, the patriotic colors begin to show.

The thing is, Creevey is convinced that the situation on Earth is beginning to swerve towards civil abolitionism conflict so drastically that resources that are needed to fight aliens will be wasted on Terra’s internal wars.

“You see...,” he presses, in the middle of a somewhat tangential point, but Jim isn’t exactly opposed to the delay. “It doesn’t really matter how much any of us might disagree with slavery, if the people who are hell-bent on ending it don’t seem to care where it leaves Earth in the bigger wars. The slaves will go down with the rest of them; do you really think a man is better off dead than enslaved?”

Jim is in the middle of a shivering spell, and his insistence sounds stripped bare to a childlike, uncomprehending protest: “It's not up to me.”

The crazy part is, Jim is learning more from these talks between interrogations than he has within the past year about how much is actually changing. He knew that he and the others were seen as dangerous for their little kick to the system, but he didn’t know just how many movements had picked up on Terra, how many underground networks and Knot-like communities were picking up through the power of whispers. Creevey is telling these things to illustrate the backlash: the number of slaves getting up the nerve to attack their owners in order to get the chance to run, how many patrol people are getting killed trying to arrest aliens who physically overpower them, but Jim takes away a different kind of point.

Apparently for several months, this Stallion Corporation intentionally neglected to enforce inspections on the security of their luggage cars, knowing full well that refugees would frequently hop them on the way to protection zones. The big mistake on the part of the Empress was having someone publicly executed for this, as it only confirmed for many servants that that particular underground route to freedom wasn't just a rumor, and how they might be surprised by how many Terrans might be willing to turn a blind eye.

And of course, blacklisted alien sympathizers remained outside of the protection of the law, which meant that more and more families of human victims were at least losing a bit of their human pride. Where censorship once meant jail time and rarely death for an occasional reckless slip of the tongue, it was the case now that if they tried to silence all anti-Empire proclamations, they would have to kill entire cities. Jim thinks back to Moreau’s theory about divisive policies, the fact that they apparently haven’t found a way to reverse Mazel’s whole mess without giving up their biggest weapon against organized resistance. It makes him wonder if that really could have been some eerily prophetic action taken by one of Commander Spock’s people after all, to deny the planet any chance of finding a middle ground before it’s too late to resist all the civil rebellion. After all, you couldn’t really expect a purely calculating Vulcan to have any sentimentality about a few Terrans being brutally exiled just for trying to give a hand to an alien; and it has been, apparently, a chillingly good plan.

Creevey has an awful lot of bad news, but it’s all closer to good news to Jim, despite all his attempts to make Jim meet them halfway. He keeps Creevey talking for what feels like close to an hour—it’s not that hard, the guy doesn’t look forward to getting back to hurting anyone—but finally it’s Jim’s patience that runs out, once the reasoning has taken a much duller turn for the defensive on Creevey’s end.

“I don’t care if you have a family that you’re afraid for, I really don’t,” Jim says. “At least I sure as hell don’t care about that more than I care about the other families I know, that you’re trying to destroy. _You_ chose this line of work, you chose to devote your entire profession to hunting down people who _help_ other people, you have no _excuse_ to think that I am somehow responsible for the fact that your home world might be falling apart. Trying to tell me you do this job to protect your people, not because it’s a good paycheck? Go home and protect your people, then. Because I’m not hurting anybody, but if you think for a _second_ , that if I get the chance to get out of here and I have to hurt you to do it, that I will hesitate? Fucking joke’s on you, because I have run out of a whole lot of green goodness in the last couple years.”

They stare each other down, Creevey sighing tightly.

“So if you’ve got nothing else to say,” Jim says, “I think I’m late for a really lovely date with my subconscious.”

 

The scratched-up idea of morning is met with the realization that he’s not in the same ship he was on the last time his mind was lining somewhere up to sober. Most of the faces that blot into his increasingly vague impressions of what’s going on are new to him. Creevey and Helen still seem to be somewhere around, unless his mind only cooked that up at some point. Some of the questions change; the people on this vessel, which seems large and has more officially separated lines of a few brig rooms, are a lot more interested in what he knows about the commander. Which of course is nothing, and the way they indirectly kick at this subject is strange, as if they might actually know enough to be able to catch him in a lie if they ask just the right questions.

In his _opinion_ , it’s impossible he ever does resort to begging during those last couple rounds of the dust being kicked into his eyes or snuck into the morsels of food they’re giving him. He doesn’t think that clutching at the pants of the next person standing over him to plead that there is _no point_ , come on, to do it to him again is exactly how it happens; it doesn’t suit him to remember that he might have dissolved into a whimpering mess after a particularly bad trip dropped him all too slowly back to where there was nothing but thirst like lacerations in his throat and the papery emaciated feel of his own body, and of course that sound, that sound, that _sound_ —in his clarity he notices a sting at his ears like he’s been scratching at them—but he cannot say with any certainty that he does not begin to absolutely lose it.

Maybe it’s a mercy he doesn’t remember much.

In and out of his senses. There’s a clear, clearer moment when he thinks it’s over for now, and observes with disinterest that they’re moving him next door, to a different brig room. Probably just housekeeping, but when the heavy door is budged open there’s a bucket of water only a few steps ahead and he has no idea what kind of stage is being set up here.

His gaze is glued in exhaustion to a few feet in front of him, but he hears a shift and a bolt of movement off to his right. His eyes only manage to follow it for enough of the effort of focusing to see that it’s him: the man looks shocked to a total stand-still, burning in sudden attention like no memory Jim has of his mask of thoughtful observation. The white hands are perched tightly around the bars hammered in around him, and Jim has to wonder at the sudden squeezing fist of recognition in his chest, because of course it’s not. He’s not.

“Hiya, Spock,” Jim mumbles, shoving that feeling away, dropping his head back down. “I see you shaved your goat off. I guess it didn’t do much for incognito. Heh?”

He’s interrupted by the rude shove to his back that smarts him right to the floor, and doesn’t pick up completely on what’s being barked at him. He blinks, disoriented.

“Which one!?” one of the brassy big guys is demanding.

Jim blinks, trying to rise back off all fours. “What...?”

“Which one?” Helen snaps, and she shoves a kick into his stomach, hard. Through the swarm of pain and his wrenching for air, Jim thinks Spock is saying something to them, but he doesn’t really know. 

The shouts louder now: “ _Which one_ , Kirk? _Which one is Spock_?”

He’s still groping to make sure the next thing out of his mouth isn’t some mindless biting response to the pain when the profile of another man in the cell on the left bruises into his sight. His head rolls up—his neck is too stiff to move, the motion hurts along his spine—to give a groveling glance up from his place on the floor, until his vision clears.

Spock is also in the next cell, and here he has the growth of a beard beneath a cold shadow of curiosity in his eyes. He looks back at Jim with clinical interest.

For one second, Jim meets the fact of this sight, dumbfounded and almost looking back to the other cell. But he interrupts himself, thoughts catching up with a sound that is a sob cradled pathetically by a low limping laugh. He covers his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Oh, shit,” he starts groaning to no one. “This stuff is messing me _up_...”

Somebody’s handling him roughly again; Helen wants to try some other thing and there’s a stir of argument as he’s yanked across the floor in painful skids against the skin of his arms. “No,” he moans, voice drowned, unable to protest that he's obviously plenty fucked up, no need to keep up with more of it, can't they see that, can't they _stop_ —?

In the background an old friend is also trying to tell them not to, reasonably, urgently; this is the last thing he thinks he hears before he's pulled up by the hair and then his head is submerged again.


End file.
